Man Bites Dog or Dog Bites Man?

Mike Huckabee's rise to front runner status in the Republican Party is beginning to look like one of those "man bites dog" stories we all, despite our denials, love to death.

The Republican elite has been exploiting social conservatives -- particularly the Religious Right -- for over three decades now, most egregiously so since Ronald Reagan, the original flim-flam man, invited them into the Republican Party with open arms by "standing firm" on abortion but doing nothing at all to deliver. The party's ruling class tapped the cultural anger of social conservatives each election cycle, using political preachers to whip them up into a frenzy over abortion, then "gay marriage", in get-out-the-vote campaigns that reliably elected Republican politicans who delivered nothing at all except symbolic gestures and an astounding array of sex scandals, straight and gay.

The political strategists of the Grand Old Perversion, from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove, ignored the warning signs -- the Pat Buchanan "Culture Wars" speech in 1992, directed at George Herbert Walker Bush, for example -- for decades, believing, apparently, that the scam could go on forever.

Gays and lesbians, who have had to fight the social conservatives in the trenches over anti-marriage amendments, ENDA, hate crimes legislation, DADT and the array of social conservative efforts to return us to the 1950's closet, knew better. We had seen the cultural anger unleashed, and we could feel its depth, power and viciousness. We knew that the cultural anger of social conservatives was largely misplaced -- the idiocy of "protecting marriage" by banning marriage, when the real problem is that straight people aren't getting married and don't stay married, is as obvious as a goat's ass to anyone who isn't so mad that they can't see straight, for example -- but we knew it was real and would, sooner or later, consume the Republican Party.

A few of the more astute Republican politicians knew it, too.

"On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism." - Barry Goldwater

Goldwater knew the power of social conservatives, too. Before his death, Goldwater, a constitutional conservative who paved the way for Ronald Reagan, endured his Golgotha, swept out of the way and dismissed as senile and demented by the Republican elite. But he saw the danger with clear eyes, and he warned his party in clear tones:

"Being a conservative in America traditionally has meant that one holds a deep, abiding respect for the Constitution. We conservatives believe sincerely in the integrity of the Constitution. We treasure the freedoms that document protects ...."

"By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars .... Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northem Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?"

"The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others, unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives..."

"The great decisions of government cannot be dictated by the concerns of religious factions. This was true in the days of Madison, and it is just as true today. We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic."

All for naught. The Republican elite thought that the scam was too good to end, and would never end.

In the last month, they've learned better. The Republican elite, incarnated in Mitt Romney, who tried to cynically exploit social conservatives by governing as a "business Republican" but shifted gears to "talk the talk" of social conservatives for his presidential run, and seems to have gambled that social conservatives would remain too dumb to know when talk is just talk. Mike Huckabee's rise in the polls gives lie to that dangerous assumption, and the Republican Party had better pay heed. Whether Mike Huckabee eventually flames out in the nomination process or not, social conservative voters, who have catapulted him into front runner status, have served notice on Republicans: "Heel!"

Huckabee was supposed to play the clown, and he isn't playing. The man -- a Bible-believing, evolution-hating, gay-baiting Southern Baptist preacher -- is serious about winning the presidency and turning our country into the Christian States of America. And it looks like he is going to win Iowa, and could, just could, ride the torrent of cultural anger into the White House.

Mike Huckabee's sudden and unexpected rise in the polls has induced near panic among the Republican elite, the SUV, Sharper Image and Mexican gardener crowd who thought the scam could go on forever, just as they thought that Iraqis would welcome us with open arms and the historic hatreds between Sunni, Shi'a and Kurd would dissolve overnight in an era of good feeling once American boots landed on the ground.

Not so, and the neocon counterattack on Huckabee is in full voice.

Rich Lowry of the National Review, a Tucker Carlson clone who gives new meaning to the word "twit" -- bouncy, cute, so metro -- is beside himself, fearing "Huckacide":

"After many false prophecies, Dean circa 2008 has finally arrived. He is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Not because he will inevitably blow himself up in Iowa. But because, like Dean, his nomination would represent an act of suicide by his party.

Like Dean, Huckabee is an under-vetted former governor who is manifestly unprepared to be president of the United States. Like Dean, he is rising toward the top of polls in a crowded field based on his appeal to a particular niche of his party. As with Dean, his vulnerabilities in a general election are so screamingly obvious that it’s hard to believe that primary voters, once they focus seriously on their choice, will nominate him.

The GOP’s social conservatism inarguably has been an enormous benefit to the party throughout the past 30 years, winning over conservative Democrats and lower-income voters who otherwise might not find the Republican limited-government message appealing. That said, nominating a Southern Baptist pastor running on his religiosity would be rather overdoing it. Social conservatism has to be part of the Republican message, but it can't be the message in its entirety.

Someone needs to tell Huckabee. ...

Huckabee has declared that he doesn’t believe in evolution. Even if there are many people in America who agree with him, his position would play into the image of Republicans as the anti-science party. This would tend to push away independents and upper-income Republicans. In short, Huckabee would take a strength of the GOP and, through overplaying it, make it a weakness.

He’d do the same on taxes. In general, the public tends to support Democratic proposals for bigger government, which Republicans counter by saying that the proposals will require higher taxes. Huckabee will be equipped poorly to make this traditional Republican comeback, given his tax-raising history in Arkansas. Huckabee tries to compensate with a sales-tax scheme that allows him to say he supports eliminating the IRS, but is so wildly implausible that it would be a liability in a general election.

Then, there’s national security, the Republican trump card during the Cold War and after 9/11. Huckabee not only has zero national-security credentials, he basically has no foreign-policy advisers either, as a New York Times Magazine piece this Sunday makes clear. In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in September, Huckabee struck notes seemingly borrowed from Barack Obama, hitting the Bush administration for its “bunker mentality” and strongly supporting direct talks with Iran. A foreign-policy debate with a Democratic nominee would be a competition over who can promise to be nicer to foreign countries.

None of this is a winning formula. Huckabee has been running his campaign out of his back pocket, and has done it extremely well. There’s a reason, though, that serious candidates surround themselves with policy experts. It’s necessary to running a campaign based on more than sound bites. Wherever you scratch Huckabee on policy, he seems an inch deep. Do Republicans really want to enter what is already a tough political year with a candidate apparently allergic to preparation, and who has shown no predilection for organizing or fundraising, when he can do cable TV appearances instead?

Democrats have to be looking at Huckabee the way Republicans once regarded Dean — as a shiny Christmas present that is too good to be true."

Following up on the Christmas present theme, Douglas MacKinnon, of the long-upper-lip school of Republican commentary who authored the screed "America's Last Days", intones "Huckabee -- The Ultimate Liberal Plant":

"If you are the eventual Democratic nominee for President in 2008, who would you like to run against? Answer: A Republican you can beat.

Chris Matthews, of MSNBC, recently asked, “Why is the liberal media giving Huckabee a free ride?” Could the answer be as obvious as the liberal media thinks that they have war-gamed this election better than conservatives? Did they look at the Republican field and try to ascertain who would be the weakest “non-fringe” candidate? That most of the mainstream media is going to be in the bag for the Democratic nominee, is beyond question. As that is certainly the case, a method to their literal madness would be in order. ...

Some conservatives and Evangelicals have said that they are supporting Huckabee because he’s a “law and order” candidate or a “good” Christian. Really? It’s difficult to be a “law and order” candidate when the grieving mother of an innocent young woman who was brutally raped and murdered, comes out against you. A mother whose daughter was killed by a man safely locked-up in prison for a previous rape until then Governor Huckabee sent the rapist a personal note of encouragement and endorsed his parole. ...

Maybe Huckabee thinks he’s “invincible” because he has literally inferred that God wants him to win. “It’s the same power,” he said of his sudden rise in the polls, “That helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves of bread feed a crowd of 5,000 people.” Okay. ... There have been reports that Huckabee recently told a Pastor that God speaks to him. ...

If Huckabee is using God as a “gimmick,” this is not the first time. Should any voter care to see it, one only has to type “Huckabee – God – 2004 Republican Governors Association” into the search engine of their choice and see Huckabee – long before Rudy – take an “unexpected” phone call at the podium. His call was from “God,” and in the world of Mike Huckabee, “God” was reduced to a partisan hack."

Hugh Hewitt, on the other hand, who tolerated the Religious Right's deceptive and vicious attacks on gays and lesbians for years, suddenly became a convert to the idea of religious tolerance. In "Mike Huckabee's Low Blow", Hewitt, commenting on the "Jesus and Satan" question, says:

"Then comes the below the belt hit on Mormons, so profoundly off-putting to Republicans who believe in the big tent as well as to evangelicals and Catholics who know the gulf between their theology and that of the LDS Church but who would no more verbally assault their Mormons friends, neighbors and business colleagues than they would any other American different from them on matters of faith. It just itsn't done. "Republican voters will not tolerate attacks on faith," pollster Frank Luntz declared on my program yesterday. I think he is right, and I hope he is right. Such attacks on different religious beliefs have been part of American history, but aren't part of the American future. The common creed of moral convictions that Romney referred to his his College Station speech on faith now includes as one of its tenets that you do not mock or insult another person's religion."

It goes on and on. Take a look over at www.townhall.com, which is something of a compendium of right-wing flak.

The Republican Party is, finally, getting its just desserts.

Republicans have been running on a platform based exploiting cultural anger among social conservatives for years, coupled with an aggrieved, frightened hatred for the "liberal elite" who supposedly want to impose "secularism" as a substitute for Jesus Christ. All the while, the Republican Party has, as Thomas Frank pointed out in "What's the Matter with Kansas? : How Conservatives Won the Heart of America" and Joe Bageany documents from the ground up in "Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War", raping working and middle class social conservatives economically.

Now Mike Huckabee, a graduate of the Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson school of politics, a successful politcian who can infight with the best of them, and rises to front runner status on a "Christian Populist" platform that taps into both the cultural anger and hatred of the liberal elite. And the Republican elite, which is even more the enemy of the social conservatives that Mike Huckabee is arousing, are wetting their pants.

I cannot help but wonder what will happen when social conservatives, who have faithfully voted Republican for decades and received not so much as table scraps from the Republican elite, realizes that they've been used and discarded again and again.

If that happens, "man bites dog" might turn table, and become "dog bites man".

Whatever happens to Mike Huckabee this year, you can count on this: Unlike the "Culture Wars" speech by Pat Buchanan in 1992, Mike Huckabee's run for the nomination is going to change the Republican Party, for better or worse. Why? Because unlike Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and James Dobson, Mike Huckabee is does not primarily seem interested in using cultural anger to feather his nest while gaining the tokens of "access" to the White House. Mike Huckabee is interested in political power, in reinventing this country as "Christian America", and he means to make it happen.

Good Christian Men ...

Mike Huckabee released a new ad this morning in Iowa. If there was any question at all that Huckabee is running for President of the Christian States of America, playing the Jesus card for all it is worth, watch:

The ad is a straight up appeal to conservative Christians. Huckabee asks Iowans if they're "about worn out of all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics." He goes on to say "At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ. I hope you and your family have a magnificent Christmas season. God bless you and Merry Christmas."

If the words aren't direct enough, the visuals hammer the message home like a nail through the head. Huckabee stands in front of a glowing Christmas tree as "Silent Night" plays in the background, and the book shelves over his shoulder are carefully lit to create a cross, which slowly moves to a position behind his head as the ad progresses. Subliminal, it is not. Hell, subtle, it is not.

Happy holidays to you, too, Mike. You missed your chance to extend Channukah greetings to Jewish Americans, in case you care, but you've still got time to put up an ad celebrating Kwanzaa.

The (White?) Elephant Under the Table

""If I'm talking about the issues that matter to people, if we do a good job in letting people know who I am and what I stand for ... they'll make their judgment not based on my race but based on how well they think I can lead this country." -- Barack Obama

I've worked in politics since 1968. I've learned the ropes and seen a lot.

I spent much of my adult life living on Chicago's south side, in the shadow of the University of Chicago, a racially mixed area surrounded by African-American neighborhoods. In Chicago, race and ethnic lines are sharply drawn, and I've had my share of dealing with race as an issue in political campaigns.

The most overtly racial campaign I worked on was Harold Washington's successful 1983 run for mayor, which exposed the raw wounds of racial division in Chicago and set off years of "Council Wars" between Mayor Washington and the white ethnic machine in the City Council, which was so ugly and went on so long that Chicago became known as "Beirut on the Lake".

Washington won the Democratic primary, in a contest where he was pitted against Chicago's current mayor, Richard M. Daley, and the then-current mayor, Jane Byrne, by a small margin, and then went on to fight Bernard Epton, a nebbish who would in normal times have been a nominal Republican stand in, expected to get 5% of the vote, if that.

It didn't turn out that way in the racial cauldron that was Chicago. Epton was supported by many white ethnic Democrats and ward committeemen, including "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak, chairman of the Democratic Party of Cook County, Eddie Burke, an Irish ethic powerhouse, and Ed Kelly, who controlled the Chicago Park District, a huge patronage operation.

Washington won the general election by 4% in a rough, race-baiting election.

Polling immediately before the election showed Mayor Washington with a much wider lead than he actually got at the voting booth. The 1983 election appears to be an example of the "Bradley Effect", a political phenomenon in which statistically significant numbers of white voters tell pollsters in advance of an election that they are either undecided or likely to vote for an African-American candidate, but actually vote for the white candidate. Issues and intentions aside, in the end, when it is time to pull the lever, "Bradley Effect" whites vote white.

Living now in rural Wisconsin, where race is a more subtle issue, I wonder about the "Bradley Effect" and the upcoming political election. Specifically, I wonder how much of the current garbage coming out of the Clinton camp is misdirection, overtly stated as concerns about the effect of Obama's teenage drug use, or his father's religion, on Obama's "electability", when what is really being talked about is Obama's race and concerns about the electability of an African-American.

Race is a more subtle issue in rural Wisconsin for the simple reason that few African-Americans live in rural Wisconsin. In Sauk County, where I live, less than 1% of the population is African-American, and that is typical of rural Wisconsin.

As a result, people in our area are not engaged in the kind of direct racial and ethnic power struggles like people in Chicago and other large cities, and lines of racial division are much less stark.

It is not that people in rural Wisconsin are less affected by our country's racial divisions or the lingering effects of our racist history, but that the racial divide in our area is subsumed into the urban/rural divide. Racial prejudice is folded into prejudice against urbanites, as in "Milwaukee? How could anyone stand to live there?". Racial issues in our area are much like gay issues, seen as "other", affecting the cities but not our rural quiet.

And, perhaps as a result or perhaps simply because rural people tend to be plainspoken, I hear concerns about Obama's race -- "Can an African-American be elected?" -- reasonably often as I travel around the county with my Obama bumper sticker.

The questions do not come from Republicans, but from Democrats and others who are intrigued by Obama, think that he is a good man who might well win the Democratic nomination, and want him to win the general election if he is the Democratic nominee.

The questions concern a nagging, back-of-the-mind worry, expressed by people who are fed up to the neck with George Bush and want a Democrat, or at least a President who is as unlike George Bush as possible, in the White House after the next election -- the people who Democrats are counting on to turn a 50-50 election into a strong Democratic win.

The question is expressed in a variety of ways, but what people are talking about is racial prejudice and the "Bradley Effect".

I don't see much about this in the press, but people in our area are talking about it.

I don't know how it will play out, in the end.

Obama has not been tested against the "Bradley Effect" in any general election to date. Obama's State Senate district was predominantly African-American, and the whites in the district, although a significant minority, are University of Chicago types for whom Obama was the ideal candidate. In Obama's race for the United States Senate, the white "family values" Republican was removed after a sex scandal (if you are surprised, you haven't been following the fortunes of the Grand Old Perversion lately), and Obama ultimately ran against Alan Keyes, who was recruited by the Religious Right and was as manic and maniac in that race as he is now. Keyes, for those of you who haven't been treated to a look and listen, is African-American.

Obama has been tested against the "Bradley Effect", however, in the 2004 Democratic primary for the United States Senate. In that race, Obama ran against multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull, a "change" candidate, and Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes, an enormously popular Chicago "machine" candidate who had never lost an election. Obama's campaign, based on themes similar to Obama's themes in the current presidential primary, gained steam and Obama received 52% of the vote in the March 2004 primary, emerging 29% ahead of Dan Hynes, his nearest rival.

The election returns were checked for evidence of the "Bradley Effect", and no evidence of white voter drop off was found. This might, or might not, suggest that Obama is exempt from the "Bradley Effect". The "color line" in Illinois statewide politics had been broken down long before by African-American candidates like Jesse White, the Illinois Secretary of State, and Carol Mosley-Braun, an Illinois senator, so the Illinois results -- no observable "Bradley Effect" -- might not be transportable to a national election for the presidency.

On balance, I doubt that the "Bradley Effect" -- whites voting white, despite the polls -- will have a significant effect on the 2008 election if Obama is the Democratic candidate, for two reasons:

First, the people who are least likely to vote for an African-American for president on racial grounds are also the people most likely to vote Republican in any event. It is hard to imagine any Democrat winning the hearts and minds of the old-line Dixiecrats and fundamentalist Christians who dominate the Republican Party these days in most areas of the country, or the fiercely Republican high-plains voters in states like Idaho. The "Bradley Effect", if it occurs, will affect results in states like Ohio and Florida.

Second, Obama is, as African-American candidates go, almost uniquely situated, by temperament and message -- who he is and what he stands for -- to overcome the "Bradley Effect" in a national election, as he did in the Illinois Senate primary. Obama is an "issues" candidate, enormously likable, sharing with Jack Kennedy a cool rationality that focuses voters on issues and disarms "wedge" issues like religion and race. He is not, in a word, Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. If any African-American can break through racial bias on a national level, it is Obama.

But that, in turn, raises another racial issue. The "Bradley Effect" is not the only racial hurdle that Obama might face in a national election.

Obama's background doesn't fit the mold of previous African-American presidential candidates or that of traditional African-American civil rights leaders.

Obama, as former Senator Kerrey of Oklahoma likes to point out, is the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother. Obama grew up in Hawaii and spent some of his childhood in Indonesia. Obama was the first African-American president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review and he has demonstrated a great deal of popularity among white voters. Obama is not, in fact, traditionally African-American, in the sense that his family line came out of slavery or segregation. His father was African, but not American.

Obama's message deviates from the mold of previous African-American presidential candidates and traditional African-American civil rights leaders. Obama neither frames issues in traditional civil rights terms nor speak in the rhythms and voices of African-American civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Hosiah Williams. Obama is not "hot", but "cool". It is hard to imagine Obama delivering a tub-thumper.

Obama, in a nutshell, has not roused the enthusiastic response among African-American voters that Bill Clinton, who came from the southern roots of the civil rights movement, did. African-American voters are not coalescing around Obama in large numbers. Hillary Clinton has laid claim, for better or worse, to the mantle of her husband among African-American voters, and seems to be popular. John Edwards, who has emphasized populist and social justice themes in his candidacy, has evoked at least as great a response among African-American voters as has Obama. Obama, in short, is going to have the earn the African-American vote, both in the primaries and in the general election.

I don't know how African-American voter response will play out in the general election, should Obama be the Democratic candidate, any more than I know how the "Bradley Effect" will play out. Any drop off in the African-American vote could be as serious for the Democratic candidate in the 2008 election as the "Bradley Effect", and I, living in rural Wisconsin, do not have any particular insight into how the African-American vote is likely to develop during the course of the race.

We will all find out, I guess. We will know more about the "Bradley Effect" after the Iowa caucuses, and we will know more about Obama's potential appeal to African-American voters after the South Carolina primary, where the majority of the Democrats voting will be African-American.

For the present, the issue of race in this election remains the elephant under the table. We just don't know whether the elephant is white, black or mixed race.

Mormon is the New Gay

Mike Huckabee has been playing the "Christian card" for all that it is worth, and it has been working for him. His candidacy gained little or no traction until recent weeks. Now he appears to lead in the Iowa polls.

What made the difference? Republican fatigue with the rest of the field has no doubt played a role -- why would Republican voters be looking at Huckabee if they were happy with the rest of the field -- but that doesn't explain the headlong rush toward Huckabee.

I suspect that the headlong rush toward Huckabee, with seems to be primarily a fundamentalist Christian headlong rush toward Huckabee, is a result of Huckabee's deft use of the "Christian card" in the last month.

Huckabee has been running a very effective ad in Iowa about religion since sometime in October or November. In the ad, Huckabee intones "Faith doesn’t just influence me, it really defines me." while the words "Christian leader" flash across the screen. The ad goes on to hit the Religious Right's litmus tests, using clips, prominently labeled, from the "Values Voters" convention.

Evangelical Christians understand the code -- "Christian Leader", "Values Voters" -- in the ad, and appear to have responded to it in droves. Romney's standing took a nose dive in the polls, and Huckabee's rose faster than Elijah.

Huckabee rejects this explanation, preferring to explain his rise at Liberty University on December 7 by saying "There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a human one ..., going on to compare his candidacy to the miracle of the loaves and fish and attributing his rise to the power of prayer.

Be that as it may, as Huckabee ran Romney over in Iowa, where about 40% of Republican caucus voters are self-described "Christian conservatives", Romney responded with a "I'm a Christian, too ..." speech at the George H.W. Bush Library in Texas.

Huckabee, in turn, responded by subtly playing to his conservative Christian base, many of which consider Mormonism a "cult" rather than a religion, and certainly not "Christian", by undermining the core contention of Romney's "faith of our fathers" speech.

Huckabee has exploited Romney's Mormon faith with an deft subtlety.

Huckabee dodges with asked if he believes that the Mormon faith is a "cult": "If I'm invited to be the president of a theological school, that'll be a perfectly appropriate question, but to be the president of the United States, I don't know that that's going to be the most important issue that I'll be facing when I'm sworn in."

Think about that answer.

Huckabee is working the issue both ways, playing to his conservative Christian base by suggesting that the question is an issue, but staying on the "high road" by saying that Romney's religion is not "the most important issue".

And, of course, Huckabee doesn't answer the question, leaving the "cult" question open. But not really open, in the way that "It's not really that important to me ..." in response to a question about whether or not someone is gay leaves open the question of whether someone is gay, but not really. At best, Huckabee's answer allows conservative Christians to think that Huckabee is on the team.

Huckabee's deft play on the "cult" question got even more subtle in the feature "The Huckabee Factor" published in the New York Times this weekend:

"I asked Huckabee, who describes himself as the only Republican candidate with a degree in theology, if he considered Mormonism a cult or a religion. "I think it's a religion," he said. "I really don't know much about it." I was about to jot down this piece of boilerplate when Huckabee surprised me with a question of his own: "Don't Mormons," he asked in an innocent voice, "believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

Huckabee's play is remarkably subtle. He again supposedly removes the "cult" question without removing it by saying that he "thinks it's a religion" but "I don't really know much about it", leaving open the question of whether if he knew more, he'd be able to give a more definitive answer. The subtle message is clear: "I don't think so, but don't take my word for it; if I knew what Mormons believe, I might come to a different conclusion."

And if that weren't enough to get the "Mormonism is a cult" message through to his conservative Christian base, his follow up question -- "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" -- removes any question. Huckabee knows full well that any suggestion that Jesus Christ and Satan are cut from the same cloth is an anathema to conservative Christians, who exalt Christ above all creation.

And "innocent" my ass.

Southern Baptists and Mormons have been rubbing up against one another for a decade or two, because each are religious denominations with a decided evangelical bent, and the Baptist press is replete with articles discussing the question. Almost all answer the "cult" question in the affirmative, echoing this quote from "The Baptist Press": "Mormonism is a theological cult, since the Mormon church holds doctrines that differ fundamentally from Christian orthodoxy."

Huckabee is a Southern Baptist minister who spent years working the "values voters" circuit, working to bring Baptist ministers and churches into the Republican fold. He simply cannot be an "innocent" on the question. He almost certainly knows Southern Baptist orthodoxy on the question. Claiming "innocence" is disingenuous, in my view.

Leaving aside the question of separation of church and state -- the question of whether being a "Christian Leader" is a legitimate qualification for the presidency -- the religious bigotry underlying the "cult" question stands out like a drunk at a WCTU convention.

Try this out: What would happen if Mike Huckabee were running against a Jew, and he splattered the airwaves with ads suggesting that he is "the Christian leader"? Or if Mike Huckabee were running against a Catholic, and artfully played the "Catholic or Christian" gambit? Would the country cry "foul" if the target were a Jew or a Catholic? It seems to me that the country would be repulsed.

So why isn't the country crying "foul" now, when Huckabee is playing the "Christian card" against a Mormon? The answer, I suspect, is that Mormon is the new gay, enough "outside" the mainstream to be fair play for religious bigotry.

I am no fan of Mitt Romney, as anyone who has paid even cursory attention to this blog knows. I think that Mitt is unprincipled, willing to abandon his political principles on a moment's notice to become President.

But Huckabee's appeal to religious bigotry, and the subtlety with which he continues to play the "Christian card" while pretending to be on the high road, is outrageous. I am disgusted and appalled.

Secularism

The modern Republican Party, largely born of resistance to school desegregation by old-line Dixiecrats and fundamentalist Christians, has, despite clear warnings from traditional conservatives like Barry Goldwater, abandoned secularism as a guiding principle, at least for this election cycle.

Recent Republican debates have sounded more like panel discussions at the Moody Bible Institute than the Republican Party of my youth, with all serious Republican candidates for President affirming that they each believe "every word" of Christian Bible, talking about a war between "Christian values" and "radical Islam", affirming the myth that ours is a "Christian nation", and condemning secularism.

Mitt Romney, out of profound ignorance or desperate self-seeking, has gone so far as to confess that religious belief is essential to freedom, and that freedom is essential to religious belief.

Romney, whose fathers in faith were forced to leave the United States in order to practice their religion, and Christian fundamentalists, who proudly tell the stories of persecution during the foundational years of their religion and many of whom are descendants of Protestant sects forced out of Europe in search of the freedom to exercise their religion, ought to know better. I cannot help but believe that their ignorance of their own religious history is as profound as their ignorance of American history.

And ignorant they are, indeed.

The Religious Right goes to great lengths to portray our founding fathers as religious conservatives. That is not the case. Our founders' guiding star was not Christianity, but Enlightenment secularism.

Secularism is the principle that law and public policy should be based on reason and rational discussion -- what is best for the "common good" -- and not on revelation, scripture or religious authority. Secularism, because it is religiously neutral, protects government from religious extremism, but it also protects religious faith from religious extremism.

Secularism's great strength is that it allows each of us to practice our own religion in our private lives while protecting our religious practice and our public policy from the intolerance of religious fundamentalism -- protection that does not occur when governments are taken over by religious fundamentalists who despise secularism. We need look no further than the Islamic traditionalist states to understand that when religion becomes political and politics becomes religious, both are corrupted, and the "common good" lost in the shuffle.

When the Republican candidates praise "religious toleration" while condemning political secularism it demonstrates a profound ignorance, to be sure, but also a profound foolishness about the future. Secularism -- the idea that religious faith is a private and protected area of life -- is the bulwark of religious freedom.

Romney's current dilemma is a case in point. Romney's speech won't help him win the hearts of Christian fundamentalists, who will reject him out of religious prejudice. Romney pandered -- going so far as to fudge on the fundamental Mormon principle that "every word" of the Christian Bible is true only to the extent that it is "correctly translated" -- but what he has managed to do by pandering, inevitably, is to trigger faith-based prejudices. At this point, it would be foolish for him to cry foul; Romney made his bed, and he will have to sleep in it.

The forces of religious prejudice that Romney is up against can only be tamed by the political secularism that used to dominant our country's politics. Romney not only fails to understand that, but he appears to despise secularism. He is a prime example of a man hoisted on his own petard.

Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, is a Mormon. Can you imagine Democrats putting Reid through "the test", wanting to know, as a precondition to their support for him, whether he is a fundamentalist, "Bible believing" Christian? Can you imagine Harry Reid, a Mormon, responding by trying to morph his religious views into a "yes" answer?

Or Stuart Udall, a Mormon who ran for President in 1976? Or George Romney, Mitt's father, who ran for President in 1964?

And, while you are at it, ask yourself how many of our Presidents could pass "the test". How many of our presidents were fundamentalist, "Bible believing" Christians?

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Bill of Rights, was not. Abraham Lincoln, who preserved our nation during the dark days of a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, was not. Franklin Roosevelt, who led "the greatest generation" to victory in World War II, was not. Jack Kennedy, our nation's only Catholic president, was not. You can make your own list.

Observe where we are right now. The question asked of the Republican presidential candidates, and the standard which Romney bought into is not whether he shares the values of our "civic religion", an understanding of the rights of man and human dignity that come out of the Enlightenment, protected by Constitutional principles of separation of powers and separation of church and state, but instead whether Romney, as a Mormon, is enough of a fundamentalist, "Bible-believing" Christian to pass muster for high office.

The foolishness of Romney's speech is demonstrated that Mormonism is more respected by secularists -- those of us whom he despises -- than it is among the fundamentalist Christians whose approval he so transparently seeks. If the "dominionists" are successful, Romney's Mormon faith would be among those suppressed, while it has been allowed to flourish under secularism.

It is time for the secularists to understand that radical Christian fundamentalism is as dangerous to our country as radical Islamic fundamentalism, and return to our secularist roots. It is time for Americans to recognize that the Religious Right's drive to "Christianize" our politics is not healthy for the future of our democracy. It is time for the rest of us to put our foot down.

A Mole and a Power Shovel

I'll say one thing for Mitt Romney -- he has become a political object lesson in how to dig your own hole faster than a mole with a power shovel.

Light years ago, it seems, but in reality only five years ago, when Romney transformed his success with Bain Capital and the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Committee into the governorship of Massachusetts, Romney was the model of a modern suburban Republican -- a "business Republican", urban and urbane, moderate on "culture war" issues like abortion and gay and lesbian equality, anti-union but not rabidly so, a Republican who would usher in a new era of efficiency into the mess that is Massachusetts government.

In general, Romney performed well as a "business Republican" governor. Deploying a combination of spending reduction and tax increases, Romney balanced the Massachusetts budget, and instituted a health care reform package that seems to be working. Romney worked on education reform, but his record was mixed. During his tenure, per capita education expenditures declined, as did test scores. Romney did institute measures to equalize inner-city and suburban education spending, and called the education funding gap "the civil rights issue of our times".

In 2004, half way through his term as governor, Romney became grist for "the great mentioner", and began to see himself as a serious candidate for President.

At that point in his career, Romney began a marked shift toward social conservative positions on "culture war" issues. He moved to the right, and quickly, on abortion, gay and lesbian equality, stem-cell research, the death penalty and other issues of quasi-religious importance to conservative Christians. Romney reinvented himself as a "family values conservative".

Romney says that his conversion is heartfelt, an "evolution" in his thinking. I don't, unlike President Bush, claim to be able to look into someone's soul, but Romney's conversion has all the earmarks of a deathbed conversion. And if that is so, who can blame him?

Conservative Christians hold dominion over the Republican primary process. Quite simply, it is, as John McCain and a host of others can attest, impossible for a moderate Republican to win the Republican nomination for the presidency.

So Romney abandoned his "business Republican" roots, and evolved into a firebreather on "culture war" issues.

I remember talking with a close friend, in early 2006, just after Romney announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination. My friend is a Mormon, and knew Romney reasonably well in when he lived in Massachusetts, because he saw him each Sunday. The conversation turned to Romney, and I remember both of us saying that Romney would rue the day he "evolved" and ran for President as a social conservative.

I don't know whether Romney is self-reflective or not, but if he is, my guess is that he is beginning to rue the day.

Romney's candidacy, despite millions of dollars down the tube, has failed to gain traction nationally, and it looks like he is going to lose it all in Iowa, which was his only hope to gain traction nationally. While I've been around politics too long to say "never", my guess is that Romney will be gone by the end of February, right after the South Carolina primary, flattened by the social conservative juggernaut.

And Mormons will rue the day, as well. In a desperate attempt to stem the tide of social conservative movement toward Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher turned politician, Romney was cowed into making the "Mormon speech" he had long avoided.

Romney did not attempt to defend freedom of religion or separation of church and state, or even that the religious belief of a presidential candidate was a private matter, as Jack Kennedy did in 1960. Instead, Romney attempted to persuade conservative Christians, who are determined to impose their faith on our government, that Romney, as a Mormon, is a "Christian", or at least sufficiently so that conservative Christians could support him for President. No matter how much he uttered the usual platitudes about religion in the United States, he could not hide the fact that he had caved, 100%, to the religious test imposed on Republican candidates by the Religious Right.

And that, like it or not, opened the door for conservative Christians to inquire whether Mormons are, in fact, "Christian".

It didn't take long. Press reports on Romney's speech included comments from all manner of conservative Christian leaders, with a variety of axes to grind, about whether Romney had explained himself sufficiently, And then Mike Huckabee, supposedly innocently, asked a reporter who was interviewing him whether Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are "brothers".

And while Huckabee quickly apologized to Romney -- he was supposedly just trying to alleviate his ignorance about the Mormon faith, which is an incredible assertion given that Southern Baptists and Mormons have been rubbing against each other for the last decade because of Mormon success at evangelizing -- the question opened the door, and the news media has been rife with explanations about what Mormons believe and don't believe.

To the extent that anyone cares, Americans are about to find out that Mormons hold beliefs that are at least as "distinctive" (that's the polite word for "strange") as the idea of the "Immaculate Conception" (Roman Catholic) or "Eternal Security" (many fundamentalist Protestant sects). And because of the inborn conflict between Mormon evangelizing and Southern Baptist evangelizing, each encroaching on the other, "distinctive" Mormon beliefs aren't going to be as easily dismissed as oddities by the Religious Right.

I can't imagine that ordinary, pew Mormons are wild about having the less mainstream facets of the Mormon faith exposed to public scrutiny, any more than those of us who are gay and lesbian are wild about having half the people in the country thinking that it is their business to scrutinize our sex lives.

But that is what is about to happen, like it or not.

And, fair or unfair, Mormons have no one to blame but Romney, who all but endorsed a "religious test" for the Republican nomination.

A strong stand for separation of church and state and religious privacy might have cost Romney the Republican nomination, but it was lost, in my view, anyway, because Romney tossed any claim he might have had to principle down the drain when he "evolved". His candidacy never gained any significant support among the Religious Right, and his slick reinvention of himself had become the stuff of jokes in the mainstream -- Romney the "android candidate" and the like. He had nothing to lose by standing on constitutional principles of separation of church and state, and nothing to gain by abandoning the constitution.

Romney's misjudgment aside, his predicament is a symptom of the times, not the illness. At bottom, our country is engaged in a battle over the role of religion in our government, and Romney was in an impossible position.

When Jack Kennedy and Romney's father, George, ran for President, Americans believed in separation of church and state. Children were taught in the schools that religious freedom was the foundation of our country's freedom, and that this country was a bulwark against the evils of "establishment". Americans, in those days, believed it, whether or not it was true.

As a result, Jack Kennedy had to defend, not his faith, but his freedom from the shackles of Rome -- to convince skeptical Southern Baptists that he would not be dictated to by the Vatican. The "Mormon question" never arose when George Romney, the governor of Michigan and Mitt Romney's father, ran for the Presidency in 1964.

But times have changed. We now have a defacto "religious test", like it or not, in the Republican Party.

I don't.

The founders knew the dangers of imposing a "religious test", and Article IV or our Constitution specifies that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States".

The founders also knew, as is evident from their writings at the time, that the slope toward a "religious test" is slippery, indeed. When Romney, in the "Mormon speech" asserted that he believes that "Jesus is the Son of God", he cooperated with the intolerant minority that seeks to impose a religious test. Romney, in doing so, did a disservice to our Constitution and our heritage of religious freedom.

Not the Romney is alone, by any means. CNN posed a videotaped question from a voter holding a the Bible, to the candidates at a recent debate: "How you answer this question will tell us everything we need to know about you. Do you believe every word of this book? Specifically, this book that I am holding in my hand, do you believe this book?" To their shame, not one of them answered, as Jack Kennedy did, "I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair ..." Instead, all answered the question.

The founders knew, as Jack Kennedy did and most Americans used to, that the answer to that question is nobody's business but the candidate's.

I'm sorry for pew Mormons, because I know what it is like to be on the receiving end of scrutiny by adherents of the toxic, intolerant religion espoused by the Religious Right.

I'm not sorry for Romney. He is reaping what he sowed. Stupidly sowed.

I don't know if Romney rues the day, yet. Mormons have every reason to rue the day. As do the rest of us.

Christmas Wars

It is the season, and as seems inevitable, the local Christians are busy making fools of themselves, engaged in a battle to trivialize Christmas.

The year the battle is over the use of the public square in Baraboo, our county seat, where a creche has been tucked in among Santa, reindeer, nostalgic hay rides, lighted candy canes, snowflakes and, for all I know, Thomas the Train.

It all started when Downtown Baraboo, Inc. asked for permission to put up Christmas decorations around the courthouse as part of a six-week holiday campaign to draw shoppers downtown. Because Downtown Baraboo, Inc., doesn't own a creche, Cindy Doescher, the group's promoter, asked First Presbyterian church to erect the scene on their behalf. The church did, donating their cardboard cutout nativity.

So the creche went up, and the fun began. Baraboo residents called into the county asking them to remove the creche on grounds of separation of church and state. In response, Virgil Hartje, chairman of the Sauk County Property and Insurance Committee, said: "Tell him to take us to court to get it out of there. As far as I'm concerned, they can leave it there."

Christians started writing into the newspaper in defense of the creche.

Jodi Whitehead put in her two cents: "I don't believe the intent for the nativity scene or any display of religious belief is in violation of the "separation of church and state" unless you have been forced to go to that very spot and stand and stare for no less than 30 minutes." Kind of like having your mouth washed out with soap by your grandmother. But I do wonder if Jodi would feel the same way about a "freethinker" display that denounced religion as bunk?

On the other hand, Katie Ederer, issued forth a staunch defense of the meaning of Christmas: "If you still don't get it, try watching "A Christmas Carol" ... Then try to tell me that we can't have our Christmas."

Yeah, really. "A Christmas Carol" was a screed written by Dickens to promote commercial celebration of Christmas, bought and paid for by merchants who wanted to encourage people to "spend and make merry" rather than celebrate the holiday quietly at home and in church.

Pastor Wendy Boden of First Presbyterian chimed right in to the "spend and make merry" theme, quoted in the Baraboo News Republic as saying that the church is merely helping a local business group create a "festive atmosphere" during the holiday season. In a head snapping display of talking out of both sides of her mouth at once, Pastor Boden went on to say: "You know, it's part of our culture and we should accept our culture. And I think it's a shame we have to limit ourselves to commercial Christmas displays."

Nope, far better to incorporate the Christ Child as part of the commercial displays. After all, Jesus probably sells more books than even Oprah, and putting him at the front and center of the "spend and make merry" campaign adds a real Dickensonian touch, don't you think?

Downtown Baraboo's Doescher put the frosting on the cake, though, telling the News Republic that the nativity scene is intended to give the downtown area a "nostalgic feel during the holidays": "I think it's part of the whole Christmas season look. Our country was founded on Christian values."

Jesus reduced to nostalgia, yet. I think I liked him better as huckster for the local merchants, adding to the "festive atmosphere" of ringing cash registers. At least he plays a useful role as huskster. As nostalgia, he's about as useful as my model railroad. Not that I don't like my model railroad, but really!

I don't whether this kind of nonsense goes on where you live, but the Christians around here would be better served if they put a cork in their mouth this time of year. I wouldn't blame the Sweet Infant for wondering "With friends like these ..."

We've come a long way ...

... in the wrong direction.

The press is making much of the similarities between Jack Kennedy's 1960 speech about religion to evangelical ministers and Mitt Romney's speech yesterday.

The similarities are superficial.

The difference is striking.

The question evangelical Christians posed to Jack Kennedy was "Will you, as a Catholic, take orders from the Vatican about public affairs in the United States?"

The question evangelical Christians posed to Mitt Romney was "Are your beliefs, as a Mormon, sufficiently at odds with the theocratic ambitions of the Religious Right, which asserts that only "men of faith" -- read Bible-believing Christians -- should be trusted with high office, so that you should not be the Republican nominee?

Because the questions were do different, the men's responses were also strikingly different.

Jack Kennedy asserted that religious belief was a "private" matter between a man and God ("I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair ..."), and insisted on strict separation of church and state in public affairs: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference ... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials."

Kennedy's stance, which represented the mainstream of American religious thought until the emergence of the Religious Right, would disqualify him from religious office in the eyes of the Religious Right today. Kennedy would be written off as "secular".

Accordingly, while tipping his hat to the idea of separation of church and state, Mitt Romney asserted that religious belief is not a private matter, and that religion should play a key role in public affairs: "We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. ... Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong."

Romney's speech, buying into the idea that a secularist is unfit for high office, bought into a "religious test". I suppose that it was inevitable that he do so, given his overwhelming ambition and the dominion held by the Religious Right over the Republican Party, but his speech was a step in the wrong direction.

Refreshing ...

I'm intrigued with Mike Huckabee's rise in the polls during the last month.

I don't know if he is going to develop into a real contender for the Republican nomination -- it seems unlikely -- but I think that he is a rare breath of fresh air in Republican politics. A forthright social conservative, of the evangelical Christian Right, he doesn't hedge or waffle on marriage.

In marked contrast to Julaine Appling and other leaders of the so-called "protect marriage" movement, Huckabee has repeatedly asserted that "traditional marriage" is "one man, one woman, for life".

The idea that marriage is "for life" went missing, somehow, in the hucksterism surrounding the amendment fight in Wisconsin, and we are now in the odd position of having enshrined divorce and remarriage, which is, to Christian eyes, adultery, in our state's Constitution, all in the name of protecting "traditional marriage".

It was inevitable, I suppose. Think what you might of Julaine Appling, at least she enough low animal cunning to know that the Christian Right, on which she depends for funding and her soapbox, won't buy into the definition of marriage "one man, one woman, for life". So, aside from an occasional feint about the horrors of divorce, she and the Wisconsin Family Council ignore the ills of straight marriage and sidestep the issue of remarriage as adultery entirely.

Huckabee is cut from different cloth. He is not only honest about what he believes about marriage, but he lives his beliefs. Huckabee pushed the idea of "covenantal marriage" -- an optional form of civil marriage, in which the couple expressly commit to marriage "for life" -- into law in his home state of Arkansas. And then, Huckabee and his wife remarried into a covenantal marriage. In short, Huckabee preaches what he believes and practices what he preaches.

Coming from a man whose success potential comes from wooing the Christian Right, which has the highest divorce and remarriage rate in the country, this is political bravery. And, given the hucksterism of the "protect marriage" movement in this country, finding a Christian who isn't a complete humbug when it comes to marriage is refreshing, to say the least.