Mike Huckabee Settles The Score

MS — How would you catergorize Huckabee, angry, bitter, frustrated, resigned, hopeful or what? I read the article twice and am trying to understand his current state of mind.

I don’t think he is angry. He remains frustrated and a bit sore with those people who stood in the way of his campaign, and very much a believer in his own vision for the Republican Party. Though there is no campaign, this is very much a campaign book, and he is very much in campaign mode.

Scherer
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This is the part of your story that is really the most important and the most relevant. It shows why people like Huckabee who should be the future of the party aren’t. And it shows why republicans will find themselves deeper in the wilderness in 2 years.
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In a chapter entitled “Faux-Cons: Worse than Liberalism,”Huckabee identifies what he calls the “real threat” to the Republican Party: “libertarianism masked as conservatism.” He is not so much concerned with the libertarian candidate Ron Paul’s Republican supporters, as he is with a strain of mainstream fiscal conservative thought that demands ideological purity, seeing any tax increase as apostasy and leaving little room for government-driven solutions to people’s problems. “I don’t take issue with what they believe, but the smugness with which they believe it,” writes Huckabee, who raised some taxes as a governor and cut other deals with his state’s Democratic legislature. “Faux-Cons aren’t interested in spirited or thoughtful debate, because such an endeavor requires accountability for the logical conclusion of their argument.” Among his targets is the Club For Growth, a group that tarred Huckabee as insufficiently conservative in the primaries and ran television ads with funding from one of Huckabee’s longtime Arkansas political foes, Jackson T. Stephens Jr.

MS — From the article, I concluded he’s very much an outsider to the GOP establishment and to the religious right as well. Do you have any insight as to how he is viewed fundmentalists? Both he and Brownback seem to have the core religious beliefs of the fundamentalist GOP, but not the support of the marquee fundamentalists (Bauer, Hagee, et al).
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Care to opine as to this disconnection?

Huckabee speaks to Hagee by phone before the McCain endorsement, while the former Arkansas Governor is preparing for a spot on Saturday Night Live. “I asked if he had prayed about this and believed this was what the Lord wanted him to do.

It’s funny the quandaries that arise when you claim to be representing the Creator of the Universe. Occasionally opinions will differ as to what He really intends. Of Jesus was very specific that our relationship to God should be a private matter and that if you wear your faith on your sleeve than ‘you already have your reward.’

Paul Dirks, not being a christian I have wondered about these quanderies. In the past I’ve asked my Catholic friends who does Jesus root for when Boston College plays Notre Dame?
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Thanks to you I now have my answer.

PD: “Occasionally opinions will differ as to what He really intends.”
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Yes, that’s true. Take this guy for example.

wvng: This pastor sounds like the character (aka God’s quarterback) Paul Sorvino played in “Oh God!”

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Andy, there is a generational struggle happening right now in the conservative christian (or politically active evangelical) world. Huckabee sides with the younger generation, who mostly supported his candidacy, and which attracts greater public support, and against the older generation, which controls the larger institutions and has deeper ties to Washington Republicans. It will be an interesting struggle over the coming years.

He calls out Pat Robertson, the Virginia-based televangelist, and Dr. Bob Jones III, chancellor of Bob Jones University in South Carolina, for endorsing Rudy Giuliani and Romney, respectively.
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You know, there are other valid reasons he might have found to call those folks out.
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Huckabee’s was the most disappointing to me of all the major candidates (well, Clinton in full-on “bitter ling/Wright” mode wasn’t much fun, either). He is folksy, engaging, and funny, but he’s very comfortable with ignorant theocrats. I thought that his social conservatism with a human face was something worth pursuing, but now it seems like he’s as sinister and militant as Robertson, Hagee, and Jones.
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Andy, please be advised that Jesus roots for BC.

After reading this story ask yourself a question. Imagine what we might find if we could only ever get to read the Dick Cheney emails…
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/17/9114/4584/205/661880

Huckabee speaks to Hagee by phone before the McCain endorsement, while the former Arkansas Governor is preparing for a spot on Saturday Night Live. “I asked if he had prayed about this and believed this was what the Lord wanted him to do.

I picked up on the same thing; I have taught college seminars on religion in America and there’s a dissertation hiding in Huckabee’s anecdote. (Actually, at least two: one on prayer and decision-making in American politics, and one on political endorsements by religious figures.)

“he’s very comfortable with ignorant theocrats.” Also pretty darned comfortable with ignorance. Remember the Canadian national igloo?

Puh-leeze. His only problem with Hagee? That he didn’t endorse him. His problem with Romney? That he didn’t congratulate him. His problem with everyone? That they aren’t him.

Elvis, thanks for the answer to the BC/Notre Dame quandary. I was told previously that Jesus roots for Holy Cross not BC nor Notre Dame. Thanks for setting the record straight.

You are all wrong; Jesus likes Soccer -clearly. Just ask any Brazilian, Italian, Argentine, etc., etc.

David Frum leaves National Review:
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Mr. Frum said deciding to leave was amicable, but distancing himself from the magazine founded by his idol, Mr. Buckley, was not a hard decision. He said the controversy over Governor Palin’s nomination for vice president was “symbolic of a lot of differences” between his views and those of National Review’s.
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“I am really and truly frightened by the collapse of support for the Republican Party by the young and the educated,” he said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/media/17review.html?_r=3&ref=business&pagewanted=all

Just out of curiosity…
Who’s gonna buy this book?
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Go Irish!

Do I really have to spell it out?
Jesus ALWAYS roots for the underdog!

Jesus ALWAYS roots for the underdog!
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See, I was going to make that argument, too, Paul.
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But BC’s won the last 6 meetings, and 7 of the last 8. And I’m a BC fan, so I can’t make any argument that cuts against my position. But, you can argue that ND, with their budget and deal with NBC and history, cannot properly be considered an underdog.
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So how does Jesus define “underdog”?

Elvis and PD,

Jesus obviously didn’t think Huckabee was an underdog…Mike might have gotten more endorsements.

JJ
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More proof that conservatives try to endorse and promote a bizarro world, over at the Corner they mention the story you linked but decline to mention that Frum is leaving. Instead they focus on what they say was the meme of the article; that the internet is changing them for the worse. I just wonder how many of their faithful followers every step out of the NR cocoon and see for themselves that the world really isn’t flat.
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http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjJhM2IwZjBkMmM0N2M5N2U0OGY4NTY1NGI1NDk1ZmI=

I wish Huckabee, McCain, Palin et all would understand that if we had wanted to keep hearing from you, we would have voted for you. We can’t miss you until you leave!

Huckabee can speak, is witty, and has those evangelical creds. However, let’s not forget his batty tax plan. When the details of that were thoroughly discussed, he would have been easily beaten.

Yeah, the Huckabee “Fair Tax” plan should be called what it really is: the Huckabee “create a new and massive nationwide black market” plan.
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They’ve been using it in Europe for decades now as the Value Added Tax (VAT). It makes everything in every store cheaper if you pay cash (the transaction stays off the books) and leads to things like entire towns being painted only in primer because without the final coat of paint on the buildings they aren’t completed and thus aren’t subject to the tax.
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Additionally, Huckabee really isn’t kidding about his religion. He’s a nice fundamentalist, but he still wants to legislate the living hell out of your morality.

Huckabee pauses to praise the musician Cher for tours that are “an amazing blend of rock concert, circus and fashion show.”

*snerk*

MS: correction needed, Nathan was the prophet who spoke truth to power against King David. You referenced Naaman, who was the Syrian general cured of Leprosy by the prophet, Elisha.

Huckabee is on the right track. As a Christian, I find it difficult to reconcile the actions of some (not all) of these ministers of the Religious Right with their public policy stances. In the same breadth, they are at once pro-life but war supporters and in the next, fiscal liberals for aiding church – government partnerships but for a candidate that is against policy which would provide aid to homeless and less fortunate. These are inconsistent positions and at the least, intellectually dishonest. Further, their relationships to those in power is simply too cozy. I believe that the one thing that Huckabee gets right is that “Faux-Cons aren’t interested in spirited or thoughtful debate, because such an endeavor requires accountability for the logical conclusion of their argument.” Until, the Republican party gets serious about governing and making difficult stands and decisions which provide the country with a direction to move forward, there is simply no point in discussing issues with this bunch. They are against everything that Democrats are for. Further, they are against the pragmatic proposals that Bush and other Republicans have advanced (McCain – comprehensive immigration). The party has become the New Year’s Eve celebration with no punch bowl. Promising a lot of fun and good times but ultimately failing to deliver in the end.

I hope Republicans like the taste of each other.

bryanfromhouston,

You’re dead wrong. As a Christian, especially an ordained minister, the right thing for Huckabee to do would be to turn his cheek against the slings and arrows of his enemies and take the high road. What does he do, instead? He calls them all back to the woodshed for a verbal whipping.

That’s not what Jesus would do. That’s what Pilate would do — and what he actually *did* do to Jesus.

[...] A preview of the former GOP presidential candidate�s latest book suggests he�s taken aim at some GOP icons. [...]

Michael Scherer

Months later, McCain rejected Hagee’s endorsement because of controversial remarks the pastor had made about biblical interpretations.

I suppose that’s a nice way of noting what John Hagee wrote this in his 2006 book “Jerusalem Countdown.”

anti-Semitism, and thus the Holocaust, was the fault of Jews themselves

Any chance of going for honesty rather than being polite?

[...] A preview of the former GOP presidential candidate’s latest book suggests he’s taken aim at some GOP icons. [...]