It is a very simple question. The only logical answer is that Huckabee cannot defend himself against Romney’s criticism of him on the fiscal and foreign policy issues, and therefore, he has no choice but to attack Romney’s religion.

Huckabee’s apology on CNN denies that he is trying to differentiate himself in the political market as a Christian, as distinct from the other candidates. The TV ad where he calls himself a “Christian leader” is so blatant that his denial that it is what he is doing is another example of mendacity. If that is not the message of the ad, what is the message? Not taxes, national defense, or immigration. Not experience as a governor, but “Christian leadership.”

Huckabee spoke at the 1998 SBC convention in Salt Lake. He could hardly have avoided knowing about the video and written materials given to all delegates attacking Mormonism. As a Baptist minister from 1980 to 1992, Huckabee was surely exposed to similar anti-Mormon materials and offered the use of them for his own congregation. Huckabee is refusing to provide copies of his 12 years of sermons–about 600 in all–and my guess is that there are one or more of them that slammed Mormon beliefs in some way.

Incidentally, a lot of people attacking Romney and Mormons generally have claimed Mormons, and by extension Romney, are racist because of the denial of ordination in the LDS non-professional priesthood to blacks until June of 1978. Yet in the new Newsweek cover story about Huckabee, he tells the story that when he was a new pastor in 1980, his congregation was all white, and when he announced that a young black man who had heard him speak on the radio was going to attend church there, several members of his congregation objected and left. In other words, Reverend Huckabee’s Baptist congregation was racially segregated until 1980, so it was literally MORE racist than the LDS Church, which has never segregated blacks or other races.