Hello, Huckabee, and Holding On

It's good to be here at Time for Choosing. So, with a heartfelt "Hello" let's jump right in... First of all, I should note that I have no horse in the GOP race. My state votes on "Super Duper Tuesday", (who added the "Duper"? Wasn't "Super" enough?) and it's likely I'll make my decision based two criteria: 1) Who I find acceptable as a Christian and Conservative, and 2) Which of those candidates has momentum. Disclosure notwithstanding, there are two candidates I will not support in the primary (and like at the Fox News debate in New Hampshire tonight, Ron Paul doesn't make the cut here either) - Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee. It's easier to explain this choice about Rudy than Huck - I cannot support Rudy as a Christian. He's ok with abortion, among other things, which flies directly in the face of my Christian faith. Huckabee, however, is a different story, and I'll go into a little more detail with him. The thinking about Huck is the opposite of Rudy's. I cannot support Huckabee as a Conservative. Oh I know, he's great on the social issues, and if he somehow becomes President (I'm skeptical, obviously), he'll continue the great work George W. Bush has done on life issues. He'll also probably be a strong advocate for traditional marriage in Washington, something all too rare considering the support traditional marriage draws in a majority of states. But apart from those things, there's just not much about Huckabee's record that's worthwhile or likable. Indeed, when Susan Estrich starts fawning over his candidacy...well, can anyone say "red flag"? What concerns me most about a potential Huckabee candidacy is what the "Baptist Preacher" label will do to the Christian right. Glib Fortuna over at Stop the ACLU has called this "obnoxious Christianeering". Is this really how Christians, much less Conservatives, want the debate about Huckabee or the 08' election to be framed? Should Huckabee win the nomination, his Baptist roots will be radicalized by the MSM and "Talibanized" by the left's netroots. If this leads to defeat, it will set back the Christan conservative movement for years, meaning more future candidates like Rudy - mostly acceptable to conservatives, but not to Christians - and a scarlet letter on strong social-issues candidates. With so many important foreign policy implications riding on this election, not to mention the direction of the Supreme Court over the next 20+ years, do we want the debate to be about the "Christianeering" of a "Baptist Preacher" or how to best respond to the challenges and opportunities facing America? Still, Peggy Noonan hits the Huckabee appeal dead-on in this weekend's Wall Street Journal, "I would say his great power, the thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture. They have been bruised and offended by the rigid, almost militant secularism and multiculturalism of the public schools; they reject those schools' squalor, in all senses of the word. They believe in God and family and America. They are populist: They don't admire billionaire CEOs, they admire husbands with two jobs who hold the family together for the sake of the kids; they don't need to see the triumph of supply-side thinking, they want to see that suffering woman down the street get the help she needs. They believe that Mr. Huckabee, the minister who speaks their language, shares, down to the bone, their anxieties, concerns and beliefs. They fear that the other Republican candidates are caught up in a million smaller issues--taxing, spending, the global economy, Sunnis and Shia--and missing the central issue: again, our culture. They are populists who vote Republican, and as I have read their letters, I have felt nothing but respect." As a Christian, it's hard to disagree with or easily dismiss anything in Noonan's statements about these "populist Republicans". Nevertheless, a balance is missing with Mike Huckabee that I am not convinced can be found. Voting as either a Christian or a Conservative, but not both, is a false choice, and as glad as I am about the attention the culture war gets from a Mike Huckabee candidacy, I will not let it force my hand into choosing sides in a battle that does not, and should not exist. All that said, today's Wyoming Caucuses proved the GOP nomination is far from being decided. I'm holding on and holding out.