Tag Archives: Mike Huckabee

February 28, 2012, 11:17 pm

So, Senator Santorum: What Bodily Fluid Is Next?

From Maassive via Flickr/CC

Rick Santorum may have hurled away his presidential aspirations this week when he put forth that he wanted to throw up when contemplating John F. Kennedy’s famous 1960 address on Church-State separation.

Which leads me to wonder: What issued from his body when he first heard John Lennon’s secular anthem “Imagine”?

I am ~~not necessarily one to say “I told you so”~~ a self-congratulating prig so permit me to rehearse some of my axioms about Faith and Values politicking, which Santorum’s Michigan implosion verified for all to see.

For starters, the American electorate is not presently receptive to full-blown, mixed-martial-arts, faith-based culture warrioring. The type of amplified appeals to divisive “religious” (read conservative Christian) themes articulated by Santorum, and…

January 8, 2012, 4:43 pm

2 GOP Debates in 15 hours: Santorum and Evangelicals Coalescing

By Jacques Berlinerblau

ABC NEWS hosted a halting debate last night at St. Anselm College. It was followed by a far better Meet The Press event this morning at 10:30. Neither gathering, however, provided much to roil the normally tranquil weekend news cycle.

Still there were a few noteworthy developments and one likely scenario is coming into focus for those who follow religious politicking:

Romney, Hard to Floor: In this campaign the former governor of Massachusetts has shown himself to be a superb defensive debater, a virtuoso of the rope-a-dope technique.

Consider the counterattack he executed this morning. In the late rounds, he found himself isolated, one-on-one, with the former Speaker of the House. This encounter with Newt Gingrich was frightening and this is because Newt Gingrich is frightening. And he is furious.

The former Speaker had just been asked to reflect on Romney’s negative…

December 30, 2011, 12:39 am

The Top 10 Religion and Politics Stories of 2011

By Jacques Berlinerblau

Four years ago, in 2007, we faith-and-values pundits were pondering Mitt Romney’s coupling of secularism and radical jihadism in a memorable December speech. We were trying to figure out why John McCain, of all people, was invoking “Christian nation” rhetoric.

We were assessing presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s many references to youthful Bible study and Sunday School taught by her mom. As for that junior senator, Barack Obama, we marveled at the newcomer’s God-talk skills. He was too green, obviously; maybe 2016 would be his time.

Nor were we really focused on those who would soon become faith-and-values Persons of Interest in 2008. Mike Huckabee only flitted across the radar late in 2007. Outside of the initiated, no one knew who the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was. And few, if any, on the religion beat had ever heard of Sarah Palin.

Which is my way of saying…

May 18, 2011, 11:40 am

Huck, Newt, Rick, Mitt: The Week in Review

By Jacques Berlinerblau

Here is the most recent episode of “The God Vote” from the “On Faith” page of The Washington Post. In this installment, Sally Quinn and I try to make sense of this week’s comings and goings in the GOP presidential race.

A few quick notes: The departure of Mike Huckabee has created something of a stir, if only because it means that the leading social-conservative candidate in the GOP has ceded the field to a variety of less prominent social conservatives (e.g., Pawlenty, Bachmann, Palin, Gingrich, Santorum, etc.)

My guess is that Mitt Romney actually regrets the departure of Huckabee. In the 2008 Iowa caucus Huckabee scored 35% of the vote to Romney’s 25% (Romney came in second). But remember that Huckabee was the only true Evangelical conservative in the race. He had the entirety of that lucrative market to himself.

Interested in that lucrative market as well, Romney spent 200…

April 13, 2011, 11:40 am

C’mon Mitt, Do the (Moderate) Right Thing!

By Jacques Berlinerblau

Alas, a credible GOP candidate for the presidency

The other day Mitt Romney released a short promotional video announcing his formation of an exploratory committee for the presidency of the United States.

Political observers in America were intrigued—and in my case, delighted—by one peculiar omission: The entire broadcast made not one reference to “social” issues.

No abortion, no gays, no Islam—not a word of that dialect currently spoken in crimson precincts of Iowa and South Carolina known as Whiteconservativeevangelicalese.

There is some backstory here but before getting to that let me state up front that Romney could conceivably offer the GOP something they presently lack: a credible candidate for high office.

He is neither so far to the Right as to scare the bejesus out of the…

February 24, 2011, 8:24 am

DOMA Is Dead. Can I Marry My Dog?

By Laurie Essig

That’s it. It’s over. The Defense of Marriage Act—and the sexual apartheid it upholds—will no longer be pursued by the Department of Justice. The Obama administration decided that the law is unconstitutional. According to a statement released by Attorney General Eric Holder,

After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors that DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples … is … unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination.”

All over the country people who believe in the rightness of marriage as a source of civil and federal rights are dancing in the streets. Or at least thanking Obama for doing the right thing.

I too want to thank the president for his…