Fred Barnes on the Huckabee Ad (UPDATED)
It’s remarkable to me, as the Mormon half of this blogging team, that Mike Huckabee’s latest ad, when I first saw it, didn’t bother me all that much. I guess I expected it. More remarkable is this: The folks the ad really bothered are . . . Evangelical Christians, like John.
Fred Barnes is an Evangelical. Here’s part of what he said:
The new 30-second ad that Mike Huckabee has put on the air in Iowa represents a quite remarkable step in presidential politics. Maybe my memory betrays me, but I don’t recall a major presidential candidate who made such an unabashed, unambiguous appeal for support on the basis of religious faith. Huckabee, of course, is an ordained Baptist minister. And according to some estimates, roughly half of the attendees at the Iowa Republican caucuses will be Christian conservatives.
The Huckabee ad, entitled “Believe,” begins with Huckabee’s emphasis on the importance of his faith. “Faith doesn’t just influence me,” he says. “It really defines me.” A few seconds later, the words “Christian Leader” are emblazoned on the screen. Even TV evangelist Pat Robertson, a leader in the emergence of Christian conservatives as a major bloc in Republican politics, didn’t appeal to voters with such a strong emphasis on his personal religious faith when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988 - and finished second in Iowa.
What’s striking is that it’s not until the end of the Huckabee ad that the words “Authentic Conservative” pop up on the screen. As a result, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that, at least in this ad, Huckabee has made his political views secondary to his religious beliefs. Perhaps this is what Christian conservatives in Iowa want to hear. But Huckabee may be risking a backlash.
Read the whole thing.
What does this have to do with The Question? An awful lot, I’m afraid. Can anyone doubt what was running through the minds of Huckabee strategists when they decided to run that ad? They know Huck is rising in the polls. They know many Iowa caucus voters are Evangelical Christians. They know Romney — the only candidate ahead of Huck– is vulnerable to strategies aimed at his Mormon faith. They also know they can appeal to discomfort among some Evangelicals about Romney’s Mormonism– perhaps just enough votes to eke out a victory, which would be a stunning triumph for their guy.
So they decide to run an ad that amounts to, as Fred Barnes notes, “an unabashed, unambiguous appeal for support on the basis of religious faith.”
I think that’s cynical and appalling and disgusting. (Not that I feel strongly about the matter, of course.)
Now, all my life I have voted for presidential candidates of a faith other than mine; I’ve never had any other choice. I suppose that except for 2008, that will always be the case. I do not think I am Chicken Little regarding these matters, but I do think that if Huckabee sets a precedent that others will follow, it’s a very bad precedent indeed. I don’t like the idea of a Baptist candidate leading Baptist voters, a Jewish candidate leading voters of that faith, Catholics doing the same, and so forth. You get the picture. Western history has shown that such a style of politics is a terrible idea. That’s why we have Article VI in the Constitution– the Founders were sick of that nonsense.
K-Lo at National Review Online said it pretty starkly:
If you are not going to support Republican Mitt Romney for president because you don’t think he is the guy to win the war on terror, that is your call. If you are pro-life and you do not buy his abortion conversion story, it’s a free country. But if you are not going to support Mitt Romney for president because he is Mormon, or because you think he will not be elected president because he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, say your prayers for America.
Call me an alarmist if you want to, but I agree.
Update: It looks like Huckabee’s strategy is working, at least in Iowa. Rasmussen’s poll now has him leading there.
When we began this blog, I am not sure I could have imagined this scenario: An Evangelical running in Iowa against Romney, and successfully playing the religion card.
Sphere: Related Content
Posted in Candidate Qualifications, Political Strategy, Religious Bigotry | 2 Comments » | 
Print this post
| 
Email This Post
Recently:
- Will Rudeness and Misunderstanding Rule Tonight?
- The Shoe Is On The Other Foot Now
- Things Get Complicated, And Yet . . .
- An Example of Inter-Religious Cooperation
- 2008: The Year of the “Biographical Candidate” and Religious Attacks
- Exploring the Line
- So Much for “Adieu”
- I Guess This Is Adieu . . . for Now
- Short and To-The-Point
- Since Lowell Brought It Up…
2 Responses to “Fred Barnes on the Huckabee Ad (UPDATED)”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
fitzwdarcey on 28 Nov 2007 at 8:03 am #
I believe that for those that felt unease with the Huckabee ad, the reasons are mainly two-fold. As important as religion is in one’s life, there is still an underlying belief for many (conservatives who believe government should not dictate our lives as much in particular) that identity politics that are this blatant are un-American and not right somehow.
Secondly, it is clear that the ad is stating that Huckabee is a Christian first, as Barnes states. It is highly likely that this ad would never be considered if Romney were not a candidate. Huckabee is aiming at Romney’s religion. That is not only unsettling, it is unChristian.
coltakashi on 28 Nov 2007 at 8:51 pm #
With his ad campaigning on the basis of being a Baptist minister, where does Huckabee go in the general election? Evangelicals are not a majority of America, and making it the key part of his identity could get Catholics remembering why they used to be mainly Democrats. And here’s another point: Mormons are not a big percentage of voters, but they are a major part of several states in the West. I am pretty sure that Huckabee as the white knight of Christianity is going to come across to them as just one more professional Mormon basher, remembering the hatchet job the Baptists did on Mormon beliefs when they had their convention in Salt Lake a decade ago. As a result, a lot of Mormons are going to sit out the election, and others will vote for even Hillary Clinton out of disgust or even fear of government persecution from a Baptist preacher at the helm of the government–they had their fill of that back when the Radical Republicans ran the government and took away Mormon rights to vote. Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado could go Democratic. And that, all by itself, would be enough to lose the election.
If Huckabee is nominated, is he going to make the traditional visit to the LDS Church president in Salt Lake? Huckabee might feel like trying to mkae nice to the Mormons, but on the other hand, the same people who told him to make religion an issue might say that he’s going to be betraying his base if he visits Salt Lake. And if he does ignore the Mormons, the opposition to him personally is going to solidify. Little Mormon money, or campaigning, or voting will turn several states from Red to Blue. And there are going to be other people who react to Huckabee the Crusader the same way that others react to Mitt the Mormon. They don’t want the Southern Baptist Convention controlling the White House.
I think Huckabee has taken the “America is a Christian nation” thing too seriously. He thinks the US is his brand of Christian, rather than being a Catholic-Baptist-Episcopalian-Lutheran-Mormon kind of Christian.
Back when Genghis Khan ruled China and more of the world, he used a lot of foreigners as advisors and government administrators, because they had no political base that they could use to threaten him. For the same reason, electing Romney would be a way for Americans to ensure that he is responsive to all of them, since he has no large political base of his own. On the other hand, if Huckabee is elected, he would feel a primary loyalty to his own brand of Christian, that would in fact take priority over his debt to Catholics or Mormons or anyone else. The Christian Right has pressed George Bush to be loyal to it as his base of support, but that is nothing compared to the pressure that will be on Huckabee to live up to the expectation that he will rule as an explicit Baptist.
The foreign policy consequences of that will be interesting, but I doubt they will be positive. Osama bin Laden will take it as a propaganda point: America is being run by a Baptist minister, it is on a crusade, all Muslims must oppose it.
Huckabee is trying to differentiate himself in the market, and has chosen his brand identity.
I think for Romney, this may create the need and the opportunity to give a speech about religious tolerance and pluralism in America. Romney can now brand himself as the candidate of tolerance for diversity and freedom of speech and thought. He can point to the Christians who put Article VI in the Constitution and created the First Amendment and declare that he is that kind of Christian.