By Terry Hughes
GOLLEE, IT’S MIKE HUCKABEEWith his Jim Nabor face and Gomer Pyle accent, former Arkansas governor pounded the Republican establishment in the Iowa caucus. He captured the state with his evangelical manner, his ease of speaking in crowds as a pastor, and even played his guitar while the assembled yearned for him to deliver gospel hymns they could sing to. At least, that is how the Republican conservatives are thinking after the Iowa caucus. Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh called Fox News election night and preached that Mike Huckabee was not a true conservative in the Reagan grain, and only he, Rush Limbaugh represented the true conservatives. (By the way, have you noticed how many of your Republican friends are not calling themselves Republicans anymore? They now call themselves Conservatives or Libertarians.)
Goldwater conservatives shudder at Huckabee’s evangelical following, objecting to the notion of blending religion with government. Barry Goldwater, the Godfather of modern conservatives called the evangelicals “holy rollers” and never sought their support. His movement was logical and secular, appealing to the intellect and not to the faith. His successor, Senator John McCain, has carried the Goldwater mantel to the point of voting against President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.
It appears more certain that McCain will carry the Northeast, the North, and the Pacific Coast, while Huckabee will succeed in the South and the Midwest. The Republican Establishment is afraid of this division, unwilling to make the deal with the devil that George Walker Bush did by spot-welding his candidacy to the evangelical movement (even though he doesn’t go to church and ridicules the evangelicals behind their backs.)
What is Mike Huckabee’s true message? Is it one of just having faith and choosing life over choice? His message is deeper, and what he is saying is truly scaring the bejesus out of the establishment. He wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and establish a “consumers’ tax.” Who does he think we are, Canada? Even in Canada, the national consumption tax is only fourteen per cent, while Huckabee proposes a twenty-eight per cent tax. Do you know what that would do the price of a Hummer? The wealthy look upon Mike Huckabee as a bomb-hurling Bolshevik, attacking them because of their class. The second really scary thing Mike Huckabee is saying is that to be conservative, we must conserve our natural resources. Doesn’t this man know that God gave us trees to cut down, oil to pump, minerals to mine and air to see? We went to war in Iraq for oil, and now we are supposed to research alternative means of energy? If we give up petroleum as an energy source, our invasion and occupation of Iraq would be in vain. Vote McCain!
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