Posted on 12/13/2007 5:43:42 AM PST by Kaslin
When Mike Huckabee asked a New York Times' reporter, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers," he crossed a line he cannot uncross.
Previous to this he had played a game of teasing the anti-Mormon vote, and had been called on it by Charles Krauthammer and others.
But Huckabee had maintained deniability.
No more. Huckabee's obvious attempt to salt the mine and get the reporter to carry antt-Mormon rhetoric into the paper without Huckabee's fingerprints on it backfired, and the transparent attempt to use the MSM to further the anti-Mormon message was repulsive.
Until he crossed that line, Huckabee remained a viable protest vote for conservative evangelicals who distrusted Romney's conversion on life issues. The hard core anti-Mormon fanatics are actually few in number and many of them are on the left --like Larry O'Donnell-- and Romney had successfully put the issue of his faith behind him with his speech at the Bush Library.
But Romney still needed to connect with movement social conservatives leery of his embrace of the cause of the unborn. Until he unfurled the banner of Christian identity politics, Huckabee provided these voters with a place to park their vote, even though the effect would be to elevate Rudy Guiliani. Some of these values voters were going to vote their conscience, regardless of the result.
But there are millions and millions of evangelicals who will want no part of the appeal to "vote against the Mormon."
With his recent rise in the polls, Huckabee began to experience a scrutiny of his record that was already eroding his appeal to social conservatives. The Committee for Growth blasted Huckabee for his record of hiking taxes in Arkansas. The former Arkansas governor looked not ready for prime time when he was caught flat-footed on the NIE. Huckabee's advocacy for Wayne DuMond could not be fast-talked away, and the argument for isolating victims of the AIDs virus set off alarms as beyond any reasonable position even though Huckabee made the proposal in 1992. Suddenly Huckabee began to appear as a light-weight, and the charming,,joking second-tier fun guy took on a distinctively different look.
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.
Buck Mike Huckabee did. To the world's most influential newspaper.
Huckabee ought to have apologized during the Des Moines Register debate, but he didn't, perhaps waiting for the moderator to provide a moment to show some feigned regret.
So he went to CNN immediately thereafter and asked for forgiveness.
Will that put Huckabee's anti-Mormon genie back in its bottle. I don't think so. "That which is said while drunk has been thought out beforehand," goes the old saying. In the modern media world, candidates for the presidency don't say careless things to the New York Times. It was a premeditated aside, an attempt to get a virus into circulation. It didn't work, but it did tell us a lot about Mike Huckabee.
Guess Hewitt has his kneepads on again for his boy Willard. Not that Huckabee doesn’t pose many of the same problems.
Yup I think the Times was up to mischief. I also think a lot of people on this site are up to mischief for their own reasons. Oh yes... and full disclosure... I voted for Romney twice and NEVER regretted my vote. I don't know if I'll vote for him or not but those who slime him for religion don't help their case. Go after the flip-flops if you want - that's fair game. And let he who has never ever changed his mind, cast the first stone.
>> I thought she was Satan’s sister. <<
The joke was that Hillary was Satan.
Satan is Jesus’ brother.
No, Hillary is Jesus’ SISTER.
Sure, I’m fine with that.
Just tuned into the Laura Ingraham radio show, and she was tearing Huckabee a new one, right to his face (or voice) — during an interview.
Ingraham and others with good political saavy can easily see that a Huckabee nomination would pidgeon-hole the Republican Party into an “evangelical only” party — and thus feed directly into the notion that we are a narrow-minded private club.
I’ve gotten a sick feeling in my stomach ever since Huckabee rose in the polls. In fact, GUILIANI would tear the party apart LESS than Huckabee — and that’s saying something because a Guiliani nomination would also doom the GOP in ‘08.
I hate to see talk show hosts and pundits have to go negative on Huckabee, who seems a good an decent man, but we cannot stand idly by and watch him take this party down.
And I’m about as strick and conservative a Baptist church-attender as you can imagine.
Huckabee is a taxraiser; that’s all we need to know! :)
Thank you. Thank you.
Your points are spot on.
I see, says the blind man.
C'mon Hugh, I love ya man, but you are wrong on this. I'll vote for Romney if he is the nominee, and I will root for him to be ready for a street fight with the democrat party over his religion. But if he can't take it in the primary, he'll buckle under the first punch of the general campaign.
One, he has shown the prejudice that some have against religious freedom, especially, among the evangelicals.
Two, he has shown by this position that he is unfit to lead a nation of many religions. If he doesn't understand religious freedom, how can he understand America?
Now, I don't know a whole lot about the LDS, I don't know a lot about the Moonies either, but the country has a protection to worship as you believe as long as you are not harming others.
Huck has stepped across the 'Crusades" line, and it will bury him. It was his Howard Dean moment, and nothing he says or does will help him out of the hole he has dug for himself.
The question now is this. Do the evangelicals want to be associated with this type of prejudice?
How was Huckabee's little question somehow an "attack on religious freedom?" You don't understand religious freedom if you think that it means one can't discuss beliefs. IMHO, "religious freedom" entails being able to discuss religions without everyone getting all upset that a candidate dared to bring up a difference between Mormonism and Christianity. Do you think that Huckabee's belief in Creationism is off-limits for discussion too? I doubt it.
“but we cannot stand idly by and watch him take this party down.”
Agreed.
Hugh, I seldom defend Huckabee, but shutup already.
It shows a prejudice against someone elses beliefs. Make no mistake, it was a swing at another religion.
If it had been the Islamic faith, there would have been an outcry aound the world. My problem with what Huck said is pretty easy to comprehend. If he has a prejudice against Mormonism, what other prejudices does he have? What are we missing?
Do you think that Huckabee's belief in Creationism is off-limits for discussion too?
Frankly, I'd rather the candidates talk about the issues, not race to the front of the church to show how much they worship or preach from the pulpit how holier they are.
Mitt Romney is an accomplished and very decent man. So, he is Mormon. Evangelical Christians need to evaluate their candidate with a little more open mindedness. We are not going to get everything we want in a president and if we are not circumspect, we might get Hillary.
Huckster should practice what he preaches, treat people as you would want to be treated.
Your pastor is not running for the most powerful elected office in the history of the world.
That most certainly WAS a ‘low blow’! I would have expected any democrat to stoop to that level—NOT a Republican. Even if a democrat had made that comment—it would have still been a ‘low blow’—and would have been seen that way by most voters.
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