Huntsman Polls Worse In S.C. Than Stephen Colbert

When Jon Huntsman got about 17% of the vote in New Hampshire on Tuesday he told his supporters that now they were in the game. He meant that he was now a credible candidate. But coming in third in the tiny state of New Hampshire doesn't make a campaign credible, especially since the next two states are South Carolina and Florida. And the latest Public Policy Polling survey in South Carolina shows that Huntsman is not highly regarded in that state.

The poll shows that Huntsman is almost as obscure a candidate in South Carolina as Buddy Roemer. Huntsman got the nod of only 4% of the state's Republican voters. But it gets even more embarrassing than that for Huntsman. Since comedian Stephen Colbert is from South Carolina and tried to buy the naming rights for the state's primary, PPP tossed his name into the candidate hat -- and he got 5%. That's right, Colbert outpolled Huntsman.

There's still more than a week before the people of South Carolina vote and that's time for some shuffling of positions between the candidates, but I would be shocked if Huntsman got more than a single-digit amount of votes out of that state (and it'll probably be in the low single-digits). South Carolina is a very conservative state with a lot of teabaggers and Huntsman is just not their cup of "tea".

Meanwhile, the poll showed Mitt Romney with the lead, but he was only polling in the twenties (nowhere near the 39% he got in New Hampshire). He has yet to make inroads in the teabagger base in South Carolina (or elsewhere), and both Gingrich and Santorum are within striking distance of Romney. Will Romney get a bounce from his New Hampshire victory? Or will the dirty campaigning of the next week or so eat into his small lead? It could go either way, and that makes South Carolina the most interesting state so far. If someone is to slow Romney's momentum, it needs to start in South Carolina.

Here are the numbers from the PPP poll:

Mitt Romney...............27%
Newt Gingrich...............23%
Rick Santorum...............18%
Ron Paul...............8%
Rick Perry...............7%
Stephen Colbert...............5%
Jon Huntsman...............4%
Buddy Roemer...............1%