The Huckabee Monster--It's Alive!

We see something very interesting happening on the Right with the emergence of Mike Huckabee. The Grover Norquist crowd, the tax-cutting corporatists, are scared to death of the Rev. Huckabee, and it is fascinating to watch. For example, Peggy Noonan writes in the paper once known as the Wall Street Journal that

there is a sense in Iowa now that faith has been heightened as a determining factor in how to vote, that such things as executive ability, professional history, temperament, character, political philosophy and professed stands are secondary, tertiary. But they are not, and cannot be. They are central. Things seem to be getting out of kilter, with the emphasis shifting too far. The great question: Does it make Mr. Huckabee, does it seal his rise, that he has acted in such a manner? Or does it damage him? Republicans on the ground in Iowa and elsewhere will decide that. And in the deciding they may be deciding more than one man's future. They may be deciding if Republicans are becoming a different kind of party. I wonder if our old friend Ronald Reagan could rise in this party, this environment.

Let's consider the words uttered above by Reagan's former speechwriter.

Establishment Republicans are terrified that a fundamentalist might actually get their party's nomination. Since Reagan's days, they have courted the evangelical with smoke and mirrors, with empty promises and bombastic rhetoric. Corporate Republicans have told the red staters that they stand with them, while they outsource their jobs, ignore their schools and infrastructure, promote corporate superfarms over their small holdings, and send large numbers of their sons to die in the desert.

Of course the country club Republicans don't care about abortion. If it becomes illegal, and one of theirs needs such services, Skull and Bones brothers or foreign clinics are able to lend a hand. Vouchers or school prayer? Not a concern at Andover or Lake Forest Academy. Immigration? Why, who tends the lawns in their gated communities.

So for a quarter-century, corporate Republicans have promised to save the babies and to help Jesus stop boys from kissing, while doing nothing but cut taxes and gut the government. Now, after energizing and mobilizing this bizarre base, they seemed shocked when one of them strives for the reins of power and actually believes in the things you shallowly used as talking points.

But Peggy, and others of your ilk, why are you surprised? In Frankenstein-like fashion, you stitched this unholy monster together and breathed life into it. You wanted it, you nurtured it, you needed it, and yes, like Dr. Frankenstein, you are ultimately responsible for it. It is yours, it is you.

Couldn't happen to a nicer party.