This is why they love Huckabee

From TIME

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1694486,00.html


Part of the reason for his campaign's success may be that it reflects new currents in evangelical thought. Younger Evangelicals oppose abortion even more than their elders do, but they are also more likely to believe that the protection of the environment and the alleviation of poverty are moral concerns that demand a political response. While Huckabee is the most ardent social conservative of the top Republican candidates, he is also the one who takes the economic anxieties of the lower middle class most seriously. When the Republicans met in Dearborn, Mich., to debate the economy, most of the candidates maintained that times were good and that people who thought otherwise just hadn't seen the statistics.

Huckabee had a different message: "For many people on this stage, the economy's doing terrifically well, but for a lot of Americans, it's not doing so well." He talked about people who have trouble paying their rent or getting health insurance or paying for college. Huckabee does not always have convincing answers to these problems, but at least he recognizes them.

On environmental issues, too, he has broken from the pack. Only John McCain and he have urged the Federal Government to combat global warming. "I'm one of the few Republicans who talk very clearly about the environment, health care, infrastructure, energy independence. I don't cede any of those to the Democrats," he says.

...the younger generation of evangelicals have a different sense of what falls under the cope of Christian responsibility.

until this year. In a book he wrote, he lumped environmentalism in with other societal ills, such as drug abuse and pedophilia.

because they think abortion and gay marriage are most important have found their man! Far as I can tell, Huckabee is no corporate whore, that is why right wing radio and right wing bloggers hate him so.

The fundies finally have their dream candidate, and "fiscal conservatives" are pissing themselves over it.

that economic justice takes back seat to a variety of other issues. Witness the support for Ron Paul, it is mostly from liberals. WTF is that? He's a damned libertarian, which means liberty for the upper class and authoritarianism for the rest of us. Huck's stealing the Dems thunder and all liberals can do is bitch about his religion. It's a fucking trap that liberals fall into time and again, getting sidetracked into "social issues" while economic justice goes begging. First things first!

It would be a hoot if the race came down to Huck and Edwards, the rich would be shitting in their pants. Ain't gonna happen though, the fix is in, but the dog and pony show does make for the illusion of democracy.

As for Ron Paul, it boggles my mind that so many liberals, including many on DU, are a single issue voters - Iraq - that they close their eyes to the fact that libertarians want small government, which means no government programs to aid the sick, the poor, and the elderly, not to mention responsibility for keeping our infrastructure and products safe.

From the first time I heard Huckabee speak I was overjoyed and have been pulling for him to get the nomination ever since.

The success of the Republican party has depended upon an unlikely alliance between between two groups, big business interests and blue collar people who are tradition-oriented. I don't think they are "values" voters, nor do I think it has much to do with Christianity - "old time religion" is just a stand-in for old time everything. The notion that Cheney is representative of evangelical Christians, or any kind of Christian, is absurd. Bush himself may be the least religious president in recent history. The big money folks, more than happy to get the support of blue collar people by pandering to religious ideas or whatever works, are not interested in the agenda of the religious right. Blue collar people are not interested in supporting big business interests, and if there were the slightest hint that the Democrats were opposed to big business interests I believe there would be a mass defection from the Republican party. But so long as the Democratic party figureheads and spokespeople represent the liberal wing of the ruling class and talk mostly about cultural issues, blue collar people are low hanging fruit for the Republicans.

Keeping that alliance together depended upon not letting either group focus on the other one very much or look too closely at them. Reagan was perfect - he looked like a friend to big business to one group and a friend to blue collar "all's I know is" people to the other group.

The future of the Democratic party depends upon splitting those two groups, and what was needed was someone who truly represented one of the two groups and not the other.

I can't understand why some liberals are flipping out over Huckabee. They need to get out more, I think. Yes, by supporting him blue collar people are not yet voting Democratic, and for some upscale and atheistic liberals he seems to be the antithesis of everything we supposedly stand for, but they are moving and that is good because they are moving away from the alliance that has kept the Republicans in power. That means they are fed up with the alliance, they are seeking and thinking, and they are unraveling 30 years of careful work by the Republicans.

Do we want the Reagan Democrats back? Is it OK if they clomp into our elegant meeting rooms with their muddy boots? Can they keep their "old time religion?" Can they define patriotism differently than we do - as duty to community rather than as allegiance to the rulers - and still be welcome? Can they keep their guns? Their small farms?

We are moving towards the flip flop of the two parties that I have been predicting - Clinton representing big business and the upper class while Huckabee represents populism and the working class.

Huckabee, in the eyes of many conservatives is to the left from Clinton on economics.

Huckabee is the leader of the religious Left - not a member of the religious Right. Like Bob Novak's model, Huckabee may pass the litmus test of social conservatives on abortion, gay marriage and gun control but he's is far removed from the conservative-libertarian model of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Finally, a conservative pundit is attacking the campaign of Mike Huckabee.
Bob Novak writes:



Who would respond to criticism from the Club for Growth by calling the conservative, free-market campaign organization the "Club for Greed"? That sounds like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards, all Democrats preaching the class struggle. In fact, the rejoinder comes from Mike Huckabee, who has broken out of the pack of second-tier Republican presidential candidates to become a serious contender -- definitely in Iowa and perhaps nationally. Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know that he is a high-tax, protectionist, big-government advocate of a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans.




Novak is right. Huckabee is no conservative. He is a big spending, bleeding heart liberal. Sure he may be "socially conservative", but that term is an oxymoron.

In fact, anytime the word social is put in front of the word conservative, just go ahead and cross out the conservative part, because the politician in question surely isn't one. Huckabee is a disaster. In fact he is even less conservative than George Bush, the President who expanded government even more than Lyndon Johnson.

As one of those conservative-libertarian, Goldwater/Reagan types, who also happens to be an evangelical, that truth breaks my heart. Regardless of the way the media covers most church types, they are actually more in line with modern liberalism than conservatism. Most are not really that conservative at all, but part of that group once called Reagan Democrats. If you don't believe me, ask the average Baptist what he or she (especially she) thinks of TennCare? Why do you think we have TennCare in this Bible Belt state?