AD WATCH.

In this edition, Mike Huckabee tosses out the artifice and simply says, yes, he should be president because he's the most Christian, and yes, he will be guided by the Bible, not the Constitution. Amazingly, he still comes off as a nice seeming guy, but just because he's the friendliest theocrat doesn't make him any less of a theocrat.

We've come a long way from John F. Kennedy, who said, "Whatever one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts -- including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state." Meanwhile, Huckabee's promise to never let politics overwhelm his principles is interesting, given the context of the ad. As Marc Ambinder points out, Huckabee is battling Mitt Romney in Iowa, and this ad, somewhat subtly, tries to make his Christian faith the central issue of their race. That will, naturally, bring up Romney's Mormonism, and Huckabee is already on record trying to push that subject. "My faith," he's said, "is a pretty mainstream view of the world and of the Bible....You know what? I don't know what [Romney] believes. Even if I knew what his church believes, I don't know that I can say what he believes until he expresses it."

Yep. All principles, no politics That's Mike Huckabee.

----Ezra Klein