Frank, I was amused to find this story online today. The good news is that this is one headline that acknowledges Huckabee has to be considered one of the front-runners in the 2016 race. The bad news is that it is from Xinhua, China.

And the poor English language correspondent immediately found a GOP expert to pronounce Huckabee has no chance at all.

“Huckabee is a long shot,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell told Xinhua.

There are essentially four types of Republican voters—social conservatives, Tea Party supporters, libertarians and establishment Republicans, with the last group being the largest. While popular among social conservatives, Huckabee is not the choice of establishment voters.

“So if you are not the establishment choice, that means you have to win the Tea Party and the social conservatives, and the likelihood of that happening is not very good for Huckabee,” O’Connell said.

I am not sure why our designated expert thinks Huckabee can’t win Tea Party conservatives, most of whom share his views on social issues.

Counting Huckabee out at this stage is just prejudice, not analysis.

Maggie Gallagher is editor of ThePulse2016.com.