I was talking to a progressive co-worker today about Huckabee’s outrageous statements on God and the Constitution and I was surprised that he didn’t think they were THAT big of a deal. He tried to explain that he has a different perspective coming from Indiana, and that while he obviously doesn’t agree with Huckabee, he believes that this type of religious pandering is common when candidates come to more conservative states.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqZX0bOAYMUDoes anyone agree with that? Having grown up in IL (near or in Chicago) I can’t really relate to that perspective, so maybe I’m not being fair. I still think this DOES make Huckabee radical (if you didn’t think he was in some ways already). It’s interesting because if you take away his excessive religiosity (and fair tax and immigration plan which I’ll touch on in a minute), he’s actually a pretty likable guy and I think he *does* care about the poor/middle class relative to the other republican candidates. Did anyone see him on the Colbert Report last week?
But what you didn’t see in the clip above that was discussed later in the show is that one of Huckabee’s new advisers (Freeman I believe?) is a hateful nut. He actually stated once that he wanted to have a policeman outside of every Mosque until he was sure he knew what was going on(!).
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/16/pinkerton-mosques/But wait, it gets better. Apparently this new adviser has influenced Huckabee (formerly moderate on immigration) and his new plan for *legal* immigration. If you haven’t heard, the plan is to not allow ANY immigrants from countries that are involved in terrorism in some way, even slightly. Ok, so there goes the Middle East, but not JUST the Middle East if you take this ridiculous plan to its logical conclusion. For example, what about the IRA? Aren’t they considered to be terrorists as well? What an insane precedent such a plan would set, not to mention the awful message sent to the world.
I wrote a previous post saying that the worst Republican president would be Rudy. But in light of Huckabee’s new statements on God, the Constitution and immigration, I just might have to bump Giuliani from that top spot:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/ihavenobias