President Huckabee? Well, all right, that's jumping the gun a bit, but the Huckabee for President campaign has got to be loving life this morning, as their candidate took a strong 34 percent of voters participating in the Republican Party Iowa caucus yesterday. Mitt Romney, who some polls had in the lead or a close second going into the primary, actually finished nine points behind the former Arkansas governor.

In fact, Romney was surely one of few major Republican contenders disappointed in Iowa. Despite joining the campaign somewhat late, Fred Thompson turned likeability into 13 percent of the vote; Arizona Sen. John McCain also bagged around 13 percent despite doing almost no work at all in the state.

Though Romney's spinmeisters naturally called their candidate's Iowa effort a "strong showing," it seems the former Massachusetts governor couldn't wait to see the state in his rearview mirror in the rush to get to New Hampshire. In his address to Des Moines supporters, Romney led with a can't-lose sports metaphor: "you win the silver in one event, it doesn't mean you're not going to come back and win the gold in the final event and that we're going to do."

A nice thorough poll of those participating in the Iowa caucus is running over at CBSNews.com. Some of these numbers imply that Huckabee's appeal may be limited on the national scale come the autumn election. Huckabee took 35 percent of the "very conservative" vote - a demographic making up some 90 percent of Iowa Republican caucus participants - "well ahead of Romney and Fred Thompson." Among independents casting ballots on the GOP side, however, Huckabee placed a lowly fourth behind Ron Paul, McCain and Romney.