Praise Huckabee!

-Daniel

It's been a while since I've posted, and I hope everyone had a good Christmas, or Secular Day-Off (depending on how you want to look at it). There's lots of things to talk about, and certainly plenty of things to be angry with. But I wanted to take a moment to write about rising Republican nominee star and charisma hero Mike Huckabee.

Having crept his way to the top tier in the last couple weeks, it's been quite a surprise, making the race for nomination that much more interesting. He's a baptist minister, so I instantly have a semblance of distrust, but after hearing him in the debates, I thought: "he seems pretty charismatic, he can't be that bad." And honestly, the whole idea of the fair tax is really appealing to me. But this isn't about the fair tax (which congress would never allow), this is about the candidate.

I ran across this article in the Weekly Standard (which has an openly conservative bias), The Perils of Huckaplomacy. This article mentions several instances in which he avoids answering questions about foreign issues. When it comes to foreign affairs, the Standard says he "often sounded confused and naive."

The more I've read about him, the more leery I've become. The thing I'm most worried about is he's riding on the fact that he's a Baptist Minister. This is what he claims makes him the most competent man for the job. Maybe some people like that idea, it just makes me worried. How are we to know he won't let his religious affiliations influence his political decisions? Is he going to be taking orders from the Baptists, or the American people? I think he needs to give a Kennedy-esque speech to assure the non-Baptists of this country that he's not going to be taking orders from other Baptist ministers.

Anyone not worried about this, should watch the documentary Jesus Camp. Huckabee's not mentioned in there, of course, but I think it should still be required viewing in order to get a better understanding of the evangelical movement's interest in politics.