Is Mike Huckabee being a class act by declining to say what many evangelicals like him feel about Mormon doctrines and beliefs? The Associated Press reports that Huckabee, an ordained Baptist preacher, won’t say whether he believes Mormonism is a cult:

I’m just not going to go off into evaluating other people’s doctrines and faiths. I think that is absolutely not a role for a president,” the former Arkansas governor said during a week in which religion has become an important issue in the Republican presidential race, particularly in Iowa.

Many evangelicals, of course, do think Mormonism is a cult. But if Huckabee really wanted evangelicals to discount Romney’s Mormonism as a factor in the race, why doesn’t he come right out and say it? As in: “There are many good reasons not to vote for Mitt Romney, but the fact that he’s a Mormon ain’t one ’em.” While God-o-Meter thinks that would be doing a service to the nation, it isn’t holding its breath.
Still, it would be interesting to know if GOM is the only one who feels that Huckabee is subtly playing the Mormon card by juxtaposing Romney’s faith to his own. Consider his remarks quoted in the same AP story:

“You know, I get all these questions about somebody else’s religion. I only want to address the ones about my own, and I think some of those get a little bit almost unfortunately laborious because, you know, we ought to be talking about education and health care and energy independence and all these other things.”

Not to mention Huckabee’s TV ad. Again, why not just say that Mitt’s Mormonism–as opposed to Huckabee’s thoughts about Mitt’s Mormonism–doesn’t matter for the office he’s seeking?

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