It's becoming increasingly obvious that Huckabee won't be running in 2012.

While Romney, Tim Pawlenty and other likely candidates snap up key staffers ahead of announcing their runs, Huckabee has stayed on the sidelines even as his former staffers sign on with other candidates. Chip Salzman, Huckabee's campaign manager in 2008, is now chief of staff for freshman Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), though he says he could jump ship for a Huckabee run. Cliff Hurst, Huckabee's New Hampshire co-chair, has signed on with Pawlenty; so did one of Huckabee's top operatives in Iowa in 2008, Eric Wollson. Prominent New Hampshire Republican Ruth Griffin, a high-profile Huckabee supporter in the last cycle, has come out publicly for Romney.

While much of the speculation about Huckabee has been based on assumptions and the absence of pre-campaign activity, the reallocation of key staffers is pretty much a solid evidence that the Governor is giving 2012 a pass.

A few days ago, I mentioned that there was a distinct possibility that the Republican field would consist of Romney, Gingrich and a gaggle of unknowns. We are one step closer to that, but Huckabee's ambivalence creates new opportunities for Sarah Palin.

Does Palin inherit the Evangelical meek? There is a temptation to oversimplify the Evangelical voting dynamic and simply put them into Palin's inbox, but while she is strongly identified with Evangelical social issues, it's not all sunshine and puppies. Many traditional Evangelicals will look askance at the compatibility between her role as a mother to her children and the demands of the Presidency. Then there is the very real concern that she will embarrass Evangelicals in a way that Mike Huckabee would not.

I have no doubt that she'd get some of the Evangelical vote, but I find it doubtful that she could concentrate it the way Mike Huckabee did so successfully in 2008 (It's notable that Romney and McCain drew significant portions of the Evangelical vote in the South, in spite of Mike Huckabee's native son identification...).

For Palin, the real question has always been "now or later". Challenging an incumbent President is always daunting and much more difficult than winning an open election. There have only been 12 Presidents that served a single elected term and only three in the last century. While Obama is certainly having a Jimmy Carter kind of Presidency, it is by no means a done deal. Palin is, within the political context, a young woman. A young woman with a young family. She's also what people in the business call, a 'high quality candidate' and that kind of candidate is generally very careful to pick their shot.

She could wait, and perhaps should since 2012 is comparatively riskier than 2016, but a campaign gives her a chance to enhance her credibility in a way that only a campaign can.

Hard to know what she'll do, but she'll be very closely watched over the next few months.