In case you missed it-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/25/AR2007112501547.html?hpid=opinionsbox1The False Conservative
By Robert D. Novak
Monday, November 26, 2007; A15
Who would respond to criticism from the Club for Growth by calling the conservative, free-market campaign organization the "Club for Greed"? That sounds like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards, all Democrats preaching the class struggle. In fact, the rejoinder comes from Mike Huckabee, who has broken out of the pack of second-tier Republican presidential candidates to become a serious contender -- definitely in Iowa and perhaps nationally.
Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know that he is a high-tax, protectionist advocate of big government and a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans. Until now, they did not bother to expose the former governor of Arkansas as a false conservative because he seemed an underfunded, unknown nuisance candidate. Now that he has pulled even with Mitt Romney for the Iowa caucuses and might make more progress, the beleaguered Republican Party has a frightening problem.
The rise of evangelical Christians as the force that blasted the GOP out of minority status during the past generation always contained an inherent danger: What if these new Republican acolytes supported not merely a conventional conservative but one of their own? That has happened with Huckabee, a former Baptist minister educated at Ouachita Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The danger is a serious contender for the nomination who passes the litmus test of social conservatives on abortion, gay marriage and gun control but is far removed from the conservative-libertarian model of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.
(SNIP)
An uncompromising foe of abortion can never enjoy full media backing. But Mike Huckabee is getting enough favorable buzz that, when combined with his evangelical base, it makes real conservatives shudder.
So, how does a paid GOP hit man taking a shot at a GOP candidate relate to us here at DU? Simple.
Liberal dems, the anti-war and anti-corporate crowd, are to the Democratic Party what the Huckabee-faithful, religious conservatives are to the GOP - voters to be pandered to for their votes but who have to be put in their place if and when they try to assert actual power.
It's what Novak's piece is. The GOP decided that the fundamentalists are getting a bit to "uppity" by pushing a candidate that actually represents their interests (rather than the corporate interests) and this "insurgency" must be put down.
So, while I find it unsettling to be lumping myself and others here I'd agree with philosophically in with a group of religious fundamentalists (whom I probably couldn't disagree with more if I tried), we are in the same boat politically.
Instead of Novak throwing us under the bus, Reid and Pelosi have. In no uncertain terms.
So what do we do about it?
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