Huckabee Plays The Religion Card
A Losing Hand?
By California Yankee Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | Arkansas Baptist State Convention | Club for Growth | Evangelical | Mike Hu — Comments (44) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Republican presidential wannabee Mike Huckabee has played his experience as a Southern Baptist minister and president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention into second place in Iowa polls.
Huckabee has moved from about 8 percent last summer, to 24 percent in a recent Washington Post-ABC News survey.
The Los Angeles Times reports Huckabee being backed by 44 percent of evangelical Protestants, who make up four in 10 Republican caucus goers. But the Times points out there are doubts about Huckabee:
Some conservatives are leery of his views on taxes, pointing to his Arkansas record.The Club for Growth, which advocates limited government and lower taxes, points out that as governor he increased taxes on sales, gasoline, cigarettes and nursing homes. He says he had little choice because of court-ordered spending increases or rising federal entitlement spending for programs "over which you don't have executive control."
That's an issue which was hammered home by conservative columnist By Robert Novak in an article titled, "The False Conservative:"
Read on.
Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know that he is a high-tax, protectionist advocate of big government and a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans. Until now, they did not bother to expose the former governor of Arkansas as a false conservative because he seemed an underfunded, unknown nuisance candidate. Now that he has pulled even with Mitt Romney for the Iowa caucuses and might make more progress, the beleaguered Republican Party has a frightening problem.
The rise of evangelical Christians as the force that blasted the GOP out of minority status during the past generation always contained an inherent danger: What if these new Republican acolytes supported not merely a conventional conservative but one of their own? That has happened with Huckabee, a former Baptist minister educated at Ouachita Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The danger is a serious contender for the nomination who passes the litmus test of social conservatives on abortion, gay marriage and gun control but is far removed from the conservative-libertarian model of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.
There is no doubt about Huckabee's record during a decade in Little Rock. He was regarded by fellow Republican governors as a compulsive tax-and-spender. He increased the Arkansas tax burden 47 percent, boosting the levies on gasoline and cigarettes. When he lost 100 pounds and decided to press his new lifestyle on the American people, he was hardly being a Goldwater-Reagan libertarian.
Huckabee's new ad, which starts with a close-up of Huckabee and speaking directly to the camera and then superimposes the words "CHRISTIAN LEADER" over an image of Huckabee on a farm, may highlight his beliefs and appeal to his evangelical targets in Iowa, but it will frighten more voters in the end:
The New York Times reports the ad is clearly using Huckabee's faith to differentiate himself from his Republican rivals. Americans want their leaders to have a faith, but they don't care for leaders who are perceived as, well, too evangelical.
The National Right to Life Committee has endorsed Thompson, Bob Jones III and Moral Majority co-founder Paul Weyrich backs Romney, and televangelist Pat Robertson supports Giuliani.
In his "Bad for Huckabee, good for America," Dan Gilgoff writes that this picking and choosing among candidates is a sure sign that many evangelical leaders have moved beyond mere identity politics and toward an overdue openness to compromise in a political system that's built on it:
Does a proudly pluralistic nation want candidates openly appealing to voters on sectarian grounds -- as Huckabee seemed to do at the Values Voter Summit -- so that evangelicals back only solidly evangelical candidates, Catholics support orthodox Catholics and Jews vote for faithful Jews?Perhaps Huckabee didn't intend to ask for votes on the basis of church membership. Perhaps he merely wanted to communicate that he's more solid on hot-button social issues like gay marriage and abortion than his GOP competitors. On that grounds too, the failure of his ideological purity to translate into more Christian right support is still good news for American politics.
Gilgoff has it about right. The religion card Huckabee played is too sectarian.
Is Huckabee on the path blazed by Pat Robertson in 1988, when Robertson finished second-place in Iowa then stalled?
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Huckabee Plays The Religion Card 44 Comments (0 topical, 44 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Namely, How many times can we put the word BAPTIST into a news story about Mike Huckabee.
....Huckabee's rise in Iowa helps Giuliani the most. Meanwhile, Giuliani and Hucky speak of each other in nothing but glowing terms, even though they really are polar opposites (Giuliani a fiscal conservative and social liberal, Huck a social conservative and fiscal liberal). You would think they are natural enemies, but they definitely have (at least an unspoken) alliance. Huckabee has virtually no shot at the nomination, and it is becoming clearer and clearer everyday to me that Huckabee is angling to be Giuliani's VP. In doing so, he is allying himself with everything he claims to be against (Huck loves higher taxes and big government and hates abortion, while Giuliani likes limited government and low taxes, but is pro-choice). More of Huck's supporters should be catching on to this by now.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
And I wonder how many fiscons it'll scare off.
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With respect, I'm tired of Huckabee's positions being an excuse to look askance at the religious right, as in Novak's article. (This shouldn't be taken as a complaint about this blog, though, as it points out that this isn't a monolithic movement.)
There are many on the religious right who are philosophical conservatives. They want to defend the traditions that built this country. Socialism isn't among them.
But the party also taken in a lot of people who aren't philosophical conservatives, but who simply can't stand Democratic social values. They're not going to see anything wrong with Huckabee. Quite the contrary.
Being shocked about this is the equivalent of being shocked about a pro-choice nominee. If you didn't know this group was in the party, you haven't been paying much attention.
Is Huckabee going to win? No. He -might- take Iowa, considering it's a very good match for him, but this part of the party isn't large enough to take him to the 40% it takes to win later primaries. Only in a Huckabee-Rudy endgame does he have a chance, and I expect we can do better than that.
'Course, I'm a fusionist so...
to oppose a candidate, that ad is it. We aren't elected a board of deacons next year.
Hopefully, Bubba Jr. will crushed badly enough it will be another 20 years before we have to endure another preacher/politician.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
Huckabee's new ad, which starts with a close-up of Huckabee and speaking directly to the camera and then superimposes the words "CHRISTIAN LEADER" over an image of Huckabee on a farm, may highlight his beliefs and appeal to his evangelical targets in Iowa, but it will frighten more voters in the end
Yeah right. Who cares about being politically correct. Huckabee is a CHRISTIAN and he is trying to persuade fellow CHRISTIANS in Iowa.
Dan Gilgoff writes that this picking and choosing among candidates is a sure sign that many evangelical leaders have moved beyond mere identity politics and toward an overdue openness to compromise in a political system that's built on it
Who cares what the leaders are doing; they haven't been able to coalesce at all. All the "followers" are with Huckabee. And the poll #s show it.
Huck will win Iowa (look at polls, intrade)
Huck will overperform in NH (3rd)
Huck will outright win South Carolina
I don't mind Huckabee being what he is, and saying what he believes in. That's refreshing in a political candidate, and one of the reasons he's doing so well.
I do mind him being designated the evangelical candidate. Neither leaders or followers are united behind him. The OP claims a 40% following among Evangelicals. That's in the realm of reason.
a President who is a Christian and a Christian President.
Most people are going to view this ad as Bubba Jr. advocating a theocracy - rightly or wrongly that's how it will be perceived. Remember all those "independents" you guys are counting on to make his candidacy work? They are history with this ad.
There's a reason why the President swears an oath of allegance to uphold the CONSTITUTION. BJ obviously doesn't understand that.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
Huck has been in politics for a long time: an executive for 10.5 years. He knows how to handle these issues in and out.
And wait for Huck to skyrocket even more in Iowa and South Carolina. Voters already know he's a Baptist minister, and embracing one's CHRISTIANITY shows he doesn't care about being politically incorrect.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
.....and they (myself included) really detest class warfare rhetoric. Is that kind of talk something you condone. It is REALLY nauseating. Slogans like "fair trade" and "don't punish the child for the crimes of the parent" (endorsing the DREAM act) sound more like Hillary Clinton than a Republican. This guy loves taxes and he thinks government can provide solutions to our problems. I thought "compassionate conservatism" was dead? I'm still waiting for a series of polls following scrutiny on Huck to show him gaining.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
will be the missing your clueless diatribes on the jerk.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
Don't undersell, he doesn't care about being incorrect period.
Hucks starting to to look pretty good down there now.
Don't tell Becker though, I think he's about to bust a blood vessel as it is.
Jim Tomasik
over anything Bubba Jr. does. He's an afterthought to history and will occupy a place well behind Pat Robertson in the history of Presidential Primaries.
We have one poll, and unlike Zogby it "appears" to be a real poll, that shows Bubba Jr. has doubled his support in FL in a week. That smells like an outlier, but we'll see. Bottom line, one poll is meaningless at virtually any point but especially this early in the process. Let's see what RCP says when they update and see what the trend line looks like.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
That Pat Robertson-Mike Huckabee thing is pretty stale. Pat Robertson is backing Rudy, isn't he? I, myself would vote for Big Head Barney (my hound) before I voted for Pat Robertson. He's repugnant.
Jim Tomasik
Of course Mike Huckabee's new ad is reasonable and persuasive! Don't you know he's poised to be the INSTANT FRONTRUNNER if these futile attacks persist?
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
But I am always worried about people that use terms that have a certain meaning for another purpose.
Mike uses "Christian Leader" in the sense that he was a baptist preacher and a Governer of Arkansas. But that's not what "Christian Leader" means to most people. When they hear that, they think of someone like Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Rick Warren, etc.
The second thing that bothers me is the assumption that's made by the statement that somehow as a Christian I should only vote for a professed and devout Christian.
I've had similar dealings in the past. Although this applies to the business world, the concept holds true. I bought computers for my company from a Christian business man. His computers were good for the most part, but we had problems from time to time and it took a while to get them sorted out each time. This was back in the day when driver conflicts happened often, and computers were expensive so you couldn't have extras lying around.
I called once because I was having trouble with a computer. I got the runaround and was told they couldn't look at it until the following week. So I called around and found another company that would look at it right away. Within 2 hours they had the problem solved and I had an engineer up & running again.
From then on I gave my business to this other company. The owner was decidedly NOT a Christian, but he did good work, it was reasonably priced, and gave great service. The Christian businessman saw me a couple of months later and asked why we went to this other company. I explained my reasons (see above) and he gave a couple of excuses. He then proceeded to tell me that because he was a Christian I should be taking my business to him! As a Christian businessman, he should be doing it BETTER than anyone else. That will bring in business, not appeals to "the club".
Whenever a Christian tells me I should do something because we're both Christians, I immediately get concerned.
Bottom line is, if I were an Iowan and I saw this commercial, I'd be LESS inclined to vote for Huck, rather than what was intended.
==== 13 ====
He's just saying what he is.
You said,
Huckabee is a CHRISTIAN and he is trying to persuade fellow CHRISTIANS in Iowa.
And as I said, he's "misleading" when he says what he "is".
==== 13 ====
He was president of the state Baptist convention for several years. Technically, that makes him a "Christian Leader" even if it's not on par with Billy Graham, et al.
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
I'm with Fred!
==== 13 ====
Note to Huckabee campaign - most Americans have moved off the farm since the time of the last prominent evangelical candidate, William Jennings Bryan.
Please retool.
I especially liked his bits about not sacrificing principles to politics. If I didn't know more about the Huckster, this ad would work in his favor with me.
I'm sure there will be untold masses who are afraid of the "Christian Leader" bit in the beginning. But most of those people aren't going to vote R anyway.
I actually like this ad better than the "Chuck Norris" ad which seemed to me to be just 2 people exaggerating the other's abilities.
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
I'm with Fred!
approach to going to church.
With that said, I support Huckabee and have no problem with him being a preacher man.
Jim Tomasik
They missed a comma in the date in the Values Voter Summit cite.
“I think we are the team to beat in the NL East -- finally.” - Jimmy "MVP" Rollins, 1/23/07
I wouldn't proudly wave around his article:
Robert D. Novak: Either I'm a poor writer or you're a poor reader. I tried to make clear that the evangelicals exert a dangerous influence because they are interested only in a limited number of social values and not broader conservative issues.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/11/21/DI200...
That is right Novak is part of the vast right wing conspiracy organized to foil the Huckster's presidential aspirations.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
I simply claimed that Novak was considering evangelicals as dangerous, and I provided his actual quote.
My earlier comment was an allusion used to point out that the Huckster is using the Clinton playbook to respond to critics.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
Novak is very clear in the " False Conservative." He is worried about single issue voters, splitting the Conservative coalition.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
I read that article at Townhall yesterday, and I got the very definite idea that Novak was saying that the "religious right" were a danger and a problem for the party. Not just on a given issue, but in general, that we were dangerous, and he wasn't happy about us being around in any position of influence.
I haven't read many of Novak's articles, but if this one is any indication, I haven't missed much. Hopefully, it isn't.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/19/huckabee/index_np.html
Unbelievable Mike. What balls on this #$&#$& guy. This is similar to his famous line that denying benefits to illegals is "anti-Christian".
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
Where did Huckabee ever say: "God wants us to fight global warming"?
This is what he said (he is a conversationist, not an environmentalist):
For one thing, I'm one of the few people who's actually talked about the fact that as Republicans we have done a lousy job of presenting the case for conservation. We ought to be the leaders, but unfortunately we've been the last people speaking out on conservation.
Not only as a Republican, but as a Christian it's important to me to say to my fellow believers, "Look, if anybody ought to be leading on this issue, it ought to be us." We can't justify destroying a planet that doesn't belong to us, and if we believe that God did create this world for our pleasure and wants us to enjoy it, then all the more reason that we should take care of it.
In the Bible, it's called being a good steward of resources.
This presumes that global warming is actually a threat to the planet, and that we can take care of it. For all we know, global warming could be the means by which God is granting our increased population its daily bread.
That Huckabee is so willing to leap on government action as a solution should make social conservatives nervous. Remember how welfare resulted in the growing dissolution of families, since fathers were unnecessary as breadwinners? Just like prescription drugs, goverment money comes with unwanted side effects.
He favors free market solutions, as stated in the article.
I mean- He is a Christian Leader- and that's a good thing that I find attractive,
but I do find it... troubling, that he would focus so much on that fact. Identity politics have some validity in the sense that we want some one who has similar experiences- but I want more than that in my candidate.
Additionally, I'm not sure if the ad was wise- because of the way it could be distorted by political opponents in the general- I mean, part of politics is being careful not to hand leverage to your opponents.
Finally- I am disturbed that this ad came out at the same time as an interview in which Huckabee hints that Romney's Mormon faith should be considered by voters.
I think that Novak previews what we will see from the liberal media --
Namely, How many times can we put the word BAPTIST into a news story about Mike Huckabee.
Oz
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