I have been remiss in Huckwatching, as I was away for the weekend.

If you haven't already noticed, he's had the most web traffic(except for Paul) consistently now for two weeks. He's almost raised $1 million online (the announcement will come tomorrow), and his percentage growth rate on Myspace and Facebook outstrips the others.

I continue to believe that Governors--perhaps uniquely small state Governors?--are simply more likely to feel at ease facing the chaos of the blogosphere than Senators.

But I am mostly remiss about not reporting back from his most recent blogger conference call. The most thorough report I found was from One Mom.

He has done at least eight blogger conference calls over the past seven months. I've found reference to:

April 10 Conference Call
May 16 Conference Call
May 25 Conference Call
July 7 Conference Call
August 3 Conference Call
August 9 Conference Call
September 6 Conference Call
October 22 Conference Call

Each of them he is personally on the call. Hucklovers or other Huckwatchers, am I missing any?

Tuesday AM update: He is now placing second in Iowa in an ARG poll. This is especially important--for democratic storytelling--because it shows a rise in polling prior to the money being actually raised or spent, while he still has far less money than the other major candidates. The money is not causing the rise, though I would not be surprised at stories that confuse the two ("Huckabee raised over $1 million, leading to a rise in the polls...").

It gives the lie to the narrative that the press loves, that equates money with success (you need money to gain support in Iowa...). It also gives the lie to his needing lots of explicit evangelical leader support before rising in the polls. The press coverage in Iowa has been positive for Huckabee recently, but the story that tells is that earned media is more important than paid media.

We don't generally voice our political views on this blog, but I would like to be clear that I am not a Huckabee supporter. I am a Huckabee watcher. I agree with Andrew Sullivan that Republican debates are more fun to watch.