Is Mike Huckabee Insane?

It seems the Republican Party is going through a little turmoil right now. For years the Republican Party establishment courted the Evangelical Christians for their votes. The Republican party would always use wedge issues like gay marriage and abortion to get the Evangelical fired up during election but once the Republican candidate was elected it was basically business as usual, the Republican party's main concern was taking care of big business and the "moral" issues that concern the Evangelicals were ignored. Now the Evangelicals have one of their own, Mike Huckabee, at the top of the Republican ticket for president and that's got the big money folks in the Republican party a little bit nervous. Now theres somewhat of the a divide in the republican party between the big business, big money economic republicans versus the Christian Right and Social Conservatives. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone breaks it down like this:

But all the attention on his salesmanship skills obscures the real significance of his rise within the Republican Party. Mike Huckabee represents something that is either tremendously encouraging or deeply disturbing, depending on your point of view: a marriage of Christian fundamentalism with economic populism. Rather than employing the patented Bush-Rove tactic of using abortion and gay rights to hoodwink low-income Christians into supporting patrician, pro-corporate policies, Huckabee is a bigger-government Republican who emphasizes prison reform and poverty relief. In the world of GOP politics, he represents something entirely new -- a cross between John Edwards and Jerry Falwell, an ordained Southern Baptist preacher who actually seems to give a shit about the working poor.

But Huckabee is also something else: full-blown nuts, a Christian goofball of the highest order. He believes the Earth may be only 6,000 years old, angrily rejects the evidence that human beings evolved from "primates" and thinks America wouldn't need so much Mexican labor if we allowed every aborted fetus to grow up and enter the workforce. To top it off, Huckabee also left behind a record of ethical missteps in the swamp of Arkansas politics that make Whitewater seem like a jaywalking ticket.

All of which begs the question: If this religious zealot's rise represents the end of corporate dominance of the Republican Party, is that a good thing? Or is the real thing even worse than the fraud?

So you can look for the the big money people in the Republican Party to come out against Huckabee because he is obviously a threat to the status quo of the Republican Party establishment.