* A friend of mine and I were talking last night about Mike Huckabee’s surge in Illinois. The Tribune poll showed him essentially tied with Rudy Giuliani here, but the former Arkansas governor has no real presence here. No staff, no advertising, no media coverage. Nothing. The only explanation we could come up with is that some voters are paying very close attention to the Iowa contest and are basing their decisions on that. Imagine.

* Meanwhile, some very far right fringe candidates have so far been running Mike Huckabee’s campaign in Illinois, such as it is…

[Jonathan Wright] was an assistant prosecutor in the Logan County state’s attorney’s office when he was appointed to fill an unexpired term in the Illinois House in 2001.

During his short stint in the House, he backed legislation that would have allowed student-led prayer in public schools. Wright did not seek re-election in 2002 but re-emerged on the political scene during the 2004 election when he made a long-shot bid for the U.S. Senate, running to the right of just about everybody on the ballot. […]

Also on board the Huckabee bandwagon is David McAloon of Bourbannais, who is running for a seat in the Illinois House against incumbent state Rep. Careen Gordon, D-Morris. McAloon is listed as chairman of the Slot/Values in Religion to Unite Everyone political action committee, which has funneled money to social conservative candidates over the years.

McAloon lost the GOP primary in that district last year. Wright’s Senate bid was pretty pathetic.

* Joe Wiegand, who ran Jim Oberweis’ 2006 gubernatorial primary campaign, told me today via e-mail that Huckabee is “days away from announcing Illinois Co-chairs.” We’ll see if they move up to a more A-List crowd, but almost all of those people are already on board with other candidates.