Saturday, January 19, 2008

GOP contender - Huckabee

Mike Huckabee is a raging fundie. Duh. He's the complete fundie wet dream - if fundies would admit to having those. He's a young earth creationist. As a bonus for the Republican base, this means he is very capable of believing claims about the world that are glaringly refuted by the actual world. He wants to amend the Constitution to conform to his God's law. As a Southern Baptist pastor, he thinks that women should prayerfully submit to their husbands' authority. He's a Confederate sympathizer who believes that, for instance, the country has no business telling people how to educate their children. No Brown v. Board of Education for this nullifier.

Why is that not perfect? Well, Huckabee has dissented from the One True Faith of the wealthies. He has raised taxes slightly to help poor people. That's why he's pushing the lyingly named Fair Tax, which beggars the middle class to help the wealthy add extra gates to their secure vacation home communities.

But more important, the wealthies are scared shitless (and since their shit don't stink, that's bad) by the thought of one of them in power. They'd rather have a triangulating, compromising Democrat in power and hamstring him (or her!) with campaign cash, private jets, and deftly applied, heavily lobbied resistance. This has worked for them in the past, and it's definitely the low risk strategy, especially with levellers like John Edwards almost dead at the hands of the corporate media. What hasn't been tried because of its sheer unpredictability is putting a pre-Enlightenment fundie at the helm.

Huckabee is fundie to the core. But he doesn't have the support of the wealthies. Is this the election in which the fundies throw off their chains and take the GOP away from their betters? He has a few bully credentials, but they're too mixed to bring him all the way to 50% plus 1.

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