The conservative evangelicals have always wanted one of their own, a real life conservative southern preacher, and damned if they didn't just wake up and realize that they have one. Rudy McRomney can't compete with that. The big money boyz insist that the Republicans nominate somebody who knows exactly who the boss really is, the racists want a mean bastard and the operatives desperately require somebody who can win over swing voters. Unless the Christian Right decides to take one for the team, the Republicans have quite a dilemma. [Snip]I wrote yesterday of the alliance that the money Republicans and the Religious Republicans had made since about 1980. The reaction of the urban conservative pundits to the rise of Michael Huckabee as the leading contender for the Republican nomination for President is exactly what the religious conservatives have expected from the alliance. Up to now they have had East Coast, Midwest or California Urban financial Republicans or Texas technocrats who affected a bit of a religious tone grafted on them to make them presentable to the religious right. Now, in Mike Huckabee, they are getting one of their own and they expect the alliance with Urban Republicans to work so that Huckabee can compete and have his run for the Presidency.
"[Peggy]Noonan writes:The Republican race looks--at the moment--to be determined primarily by one thing, the question of religious faith. In my lifetime faith has been a significant issue in presidential politics, but not the sole determinative one. Is that changing? If it is, it is not progress.Did she think these people were joking at those rallies when they said this?As evangelical Christians, our main concern is the citizenship that is ours in heaven that has been purchased by our Savior. But we also understand that we have a responsibility here on this earth, so long as we are alive, until the Lord returns, to show God's love and to contend for God's righteousness -- and to tell this world that through His Law, and through His Word, God is trying to tell us something for our good, for our health, for our holiness. And we, as Christians, need to be active in the public sphere, not just to impose some kind of worldview or ideology, but to be salt and light, because that's not my idea -- that's how we were commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ.The religious right may just have finally tuned in to the fact that there was a candidate who spoke that language and they have decided to defy their betters in the salons of New York and DC (and TV Ministries too) to vote for the guy they feel represents them. As ye sow, so shall ye reap, my friends.
We need to speak as Christian citizens
Not that it matters. Even if the GOP establishment manages to take out Huckabee, the wild-eyed blue state nutballs and robots they have competing against him won't fare any better. The only people who are deeply attached to the GOP at this point are hedge fund managers, denizens of the Village and the conservative evangelicals. Putting up Rudy McRomney won't change that.
The urban conservative pundits are shocked, shocked I tell you, that the religious Southern hicks should actually expect one of their own to be nominated. The religious right is learning that what was to them an alliance with the Republican economic conservatives was really a parasitical relationship in which the economic conservatives used the religious right and never gave them anything except sweet words. The economic Republicans have been using the Religious right and never expected to get the bill.
With Huckabee, the bill has been presented. Now we get to watch as the wheels come off the alliance. The economic Republicans simply aren't going to give total control of their party to the religious hicks, and as the reaction to Romney's Mormon religion has demonstrated, the religious right won't accept anything less than control of the party and a shot at control of America.
That's what I think we are seeing played out in the the Republican battle for the Republican nomination for President.
Addendum 9:40 AM CST
Mark Kleiman addressed the "...gibbering fury directed by establishment Republicans at Mike Huckabee." Mark answers the question "why?" as being "class prejudice, social snobbery masquerading as intellectual snobbery." That, and the "Momey-cons" are really afraid of what a President Huckabee would do to their money.
Mark's opinion is that the "Money-cons" consider Globalism as being as close to a religion as they will accept, and a President Huckabee is way too populist for those people to trust. Huckabee would support an economically autarchic America, with high trade barriers. If Huckabee gets the nomination, then the Money-cons will stay home and not vote in November 2008. The result would be to elect a President Clinton or Obama by really large margins - a landslide - of a level that would also bring in five or six net new Democratic Senators and perhaps two dozen more Democrats into the House.
That seems possible, I don't know how likely. Still, I like the sounds of that scenario. What I don't like, but really feel is very likely, it the prediction made by Atrios.
We need a Democratic president so that the Republicans and their Blue Dog allies in Congress are finally inspired to take back the executive power grabs that they temporarily thought were necessary for the survival of the nation.I expect the Democratic nominee to win as President. I expect the voters to soundly reject whoever the Republicans finally decide to offer, because the Republican Party has proven to the voters that it is corrupt and incompetent. And I agree with Atrios, that one aspect of the Democratic win will be a firestorm of scandal that will make the Bill Clinton presidency look like a walk in the park on a sunshiny day.
What this will mean in practice is that Democratic president will face a firestorm of "scandal" which will make Monica Madness pale in comparison. The powers that Bush claimed will be turned against a Democratic president and will likely be their undoing.
And this scenario is much better than the alternative.
That's all less important that the way power has been centralized in the Executive Department under Bush. The centralization of power in the federal government in the Executive Branch that exceeds anything America has ever seen, and it has been accompanied by a major diminishing of Congress. Instead of a Constitutional democracy America has moved a long way towards being a Monarch with an advisory committee called Congress that has no real function beyond just raising the taxes demanded by the Monarch to fight his wars.
Nixon attempted the same centralization of federal power in the Presidency that Bush has achieved, but Nixon's effort was derailed when he was forced to resign to avoid being impeached. This is no longer 1974, though. The shift of the Republican Party to the extreme radical right, accompanied by their efforts to eliminate the moderate Republicans has changed the structure of American government. The new structure has been solidified by the modern methods of gerrymandering congressional districts permitting elected representatives to stay in office as long as they like. Those changes mean that the Congress cannot impeach and remove a President.
Impeachment was not possible (but close) when the Republicans tried to remove Bill Clinton, and it will be less possible in the future as the Democrats become more disciplined as a party. Impeaching the President was the one real power Congress had over the President beyond limited control of the budget.
That imbalance of power between the
We are heading into what the Chinese historians call "interesting times." There's really no telling what the outcome will be.
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