Yesterday, I suggested that Democrats should pray that Mike Huckabee wins the GOP nomination because his record is riven with bad judgment and questionable ethics that would make it a perfect target for attack ads.

The GOP establishment is not worried about Huckabee. Look at the numbers. Huckabee’s just don’t add up.

Several commenters, including my colleague Trish, disagreed, suggesting that Huckabee would be a formidable candidate in the general election. If Huckabee were to become the GOP nominee, I still believe he would be the easiest of the top four to beat, but mainly I just can’t see how he makes it past South Carolina next month.

That’s because Huckabee’s biggest obstacle isn’t Democrats, it’s the corporatist Republican establishment that has been in control of the government for the past seven years. Life has been grand for these fatcats under the Bush regime. There is no way they’re going to quietly cede power to a yahoo Christian nationalist populist like Huckabee.

The Club for Growth is (along with Karl Rove’s BFF Grover Norquist and his anti-tax gang) one of the leading shills for the corporatist wing of the Republican Party. If you have any doubt that they hate Huckabee, don’t take the word of an old leftist like yours truly — just click “play” on the video of the Club for Growth’s anti-Huckabee ad above to see what they have to say about “Tax Hike Mike.”

But the GOP establishment is not worried about Huckabee. Look at the numbers. Huckabee’s just don’t add up.

Money:

After New Hampshire, in order to make it to Super-Duper Tuesday on Feb. 5, Huckabee needs to have banked a minimum of $20 million for TV ads to run against Giuliani and Romney (and possibly McCain). First, he must deploy ads in states that vote in January — Michigan, Nevada, S.C. and Florida. Almost simultaneously, he needs to go up in as many of the “red” states as possible among the states that vote on Feb. 5: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah.

In reality, Huckabee will likely come in fourth in New Hampshire, after Romney, Giuliani and McCain. If so, it’s pretty much all over for him. But if he comes in second or third, and gets momentum into South Carolina, the Giuliani and Romney campaigns will turn all their guns on him, with “Willie Horton”-type ads suggesting he’s soft on crime and “Tax Hike Mike” ads like the one above.

Without $20 million or so to counter the barrage of negative ads, Huckabee has no chance. At the moment, he does not have $20 million and is not likely to raise it in time.

In the third quarter, Huckabee raised a little over $1 million (roughly the same as Dennis Kucinich), which is half of what he’s raised total from day one of the campaign — and he’s already spent over $1.5 million. By comparison, Romney raised $18 million and Giuliani raised $11 million in the last quarter. (Clinton raised $27 million and Obama raised $21 million.)

Huckabee will probably have a better fourth quarter now that his polling has improved but it’s hard to imagine that he will have raised more than $5 million before Dec. 31. He could easily blow that in the next few weeks advertising in S.C., Nevada and especially Michigan, which has an audience that might be receptive to his populist message but where advertising is expensive — leaving him nothing to spend in red states that vote on Feb. 5.

He has to win Arkansas on Feb. and that might be no problem — unless Giuliani or Romney were to flood Arkansas with negative ads forcing him to drain what’s left of his coffers in order to counter.

Even if Huckabee survives past Feb. 5 somehow, he’ll enter the downhill slope in second or third place — and broke.

Votes:

If Huckabee gets the vote of every white evangelical and even every African-American registered Republican (which I believe is less than 1 percent) between now and Feb. 6, that’s still only 15 to 20 percent of the Republican vote.

It’s hard to see how he wins in any of the GOP’s other main interest groups. The corporatist anti-tax Republicans, who have all the money, will go for either Romney or Giuliani. (Huckabee will get 0 percent from this group.) The country clubbers, including the Bushies and their ilk, appear to be favoring their East Coast preppie homeboy, Romney. (Huckabee can also count on 0 percent from this sector.)

Most importantly, Huckabee’s lack of foreign policy experience is not resonating with the largest GOP voting bloc: Terror-addicted paranoids. These brain-addled fear-addicts, who might make up as much as 50 percent of the GOP, will vote for Rudolph (”9/11″) Giuliani or possibly John (”Bomb Iran”) McCain.

Mexican-haters will split between Rep. Ron Paul, Rep. Duncan Hunter and Rep. Tom Trancredo. Huckabee, who has flip-flopped on this issue, will get no votes from this statistically tiny group either.

Bottom line: If by some miracle (literally), Huckabee can raise $20 million for advertising in the next two weeks (which includes both the Christmas and New Year’s holidays), and survives through the primaries, in the rosiest, most optimistic scenario, Huckabee gets 20 percent of the delegates — an honor that will buy him an early evening slot at the podium to address the GOP convention in Minneapolis, well before the winners take the stage.

I’ll say it again: Mike Huckabee has no chance.