I didn’t realize that Palin’s base was social conservatives. Tea party conservatives as much as social conservatives, but there are many who are both. Isn’t Huckabees base social conservatives who are not necessarily limited government conservatives or tea party conservatives.
Palin’s got all three legs of the Reagan conservative stool—with the small government, economic leg of the Tea Partiers being one of them.
Her success IMO will be based in part in getting the libertarian (that is, tea party) side of her message out to voters, as she successfully did up in Alaska, whereas the Dems and MSM want to keep her in a tidy little social-conservative box.
And yes, I think tea partiers already get that about her.
And yes, I think of Huck as being a big, intrusive government, bleeding heart conservative—only if you’d call that conservative at all.