Unused Huckabee Oppo

Published Dec 18 2007, 03:13 PM by David S. Bernstein

One of the most interesting things, to my mind, about the current state of the Republican Presidential nomination campaign is what Mike Huckabee's opponents are not using against him, even as they become more and more desperate to slow his momentum.

Huckabee has long been a true believer in the religious culture wars, and even though he won't release his sermons, there's no shortage of evidence in the public record.

I have never personally read his 1998 book, "Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence," but Mother Jones's David Corn did, and unsurprisingly he found Huckabee blaming everything on the typical liberal-social-decay bogeymen -- including homosexuality, of course. Here's a fine passage Corn picks out:

It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.

Hmmm... institutionally-supported necrophilia? Where do you apply for those grants, I wonder?

Corn also relates this sentence, in which Huckabee lumps environmentalism in with other woes:

Abortion, environmentalism, AIDS, pornography, drug abuse, and homosexual activism have fragmented and polarized our communities.

Bear in mind that the book is explicitly addressed to the question of what causes youth violence of the type that had just struck Huckabee's state, in the Jonesboro school shooting. Does he really think that environmentalism and AIDS were responsible?

Huckabee also denounces government social programs, no-fault divorce, workplace gender equality, and of course secularists, Corn reports. The language of the book is strident, overtly religious, and divisive.

Clearly, these are views that would drag down, if not demolish, a Huckabee general-election candidacy. Why aren't his opponents, such as Mitt Romney, making this point?

The answer is pretty obvious -- no Republican candidate, apparently, is willing to offend the hardcore religious right.