“The Huckabee issue” may prove to be the final undoing of the increasingly old, tottering, out-of-touch, self-appointed evangelical mullahs.
It begins with the mullahs. Keep in mind that it is this group of men – Dobson, Land, Perkins, Bauer, etc. – that demanded blind and slavish loyalty among their followers to President Bush from 1999 on. They are the ones who sold him as a “pastor-in-chief,” as the good Christian man who would restore honor and dignity to the White House after the Clinton presidency.
This has proven to be not only politically disastrous – anyone see a poll recently? – but spiritually disastrous as well. At the end of the day these are the leaders who encouraged Christians to put aside the Biblical command that they speak truth to power no matter who sits in power. Bad trade.
And they are all paying for it. Donations to Christian political organizations – and those associated with them – have been diving since Katrina and there is no end in sight… not even with hiring freezes and staff layoffs. Grassroots evangelical trust in these men is very, very low.
Now comes Mike.
Mike Huckabee is everything a conservative evangelical should want. He is pro-life. He is a model of personal self-discipline – the guy lost like 2,423 lbs. He is against gay marriage. He is for tax cuts. He is a former governor. Heck, he is a former preacher for crying out loud. He is articulate, self-deprecating, humble, and holds his own in even the toughest venues – ever see him on Bill Maher?
Yet the evangelical leadership stiffs him. Why? Because he can’t beat Hillary?
That is the ultimate absurdity. They are saying a dynamic former governor from Hope, Arkansas can’t win the presidency? Hello?
It doesn’t really matter what these guys say or do anymore. Their time is simply past. It is true chronologically – most of these guys haven’t been seen without geritol in a very long time – and it is true ideologically and theologically as well. A new generation of evangelicals have never heard of them. The older generation of evangelicals don’t trust them. The rest of the country thinks that if they are what Christianity is about it must not be much of a faith at all.