Because Mike Huckabee mentioned "the birth of Christ," he liberated the equivocal tentative finger-in-the-windy candidates and enabled them to utter the dread words "Merry Christmas." (Save, that is, for Sen. Clinton, whose message ends with "Happy Holidays.") Thus, in a small way, the governor shifted the goalposts. I can't say I care for the Huckster policy-wise, but his instincts are very shrewd. There's a big demographic out there (and certainly not confined to evangelical Protestants, or even believing Christians) that's sick of the insipid generalities of the liberal establishment's offensively inoffensive pseudo-religion. By declining to defer to it and suffering no ill effects, Huck demonstrated how weedy and insubstantial it is. A lot of cultural warriors will be heartened by that.