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MATT TAIBBI, ROLLING STONE - 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. . .

As governor of Arkansas, he outraged Republicans with his plan to expand health coverage for children, his embrace of refugees from Katrina and his support for subsidized higher education for the children of illegal immigrants. Worse still, from a Republican standpoint, Huckabee showed little hesitation in raising taxes to pay for such programs -- one analysis claims that new taxes initiated during his tenure resulted in a net tax increase of $505 million. Even Max Brantley, editor of the Arkansas Times and one of Huckabee's most ferocious critics, concedes that the candidate's populism isn't an act. . .

For all his political waffling in other areas -- Huckabee has flip-flopped on a host of earthly political issues, from taxes to local control of school boards -- he leaves absolutely no doubt about his commitment to religious wackohood. . .

Huckabee gave [a] damning glimpse into his inner batshit self in a recent appearance at the Prestonwood Baptist Church near Dallas, where he told audiences that Christians are sitting in the pole position of the race to Armageddon. "If you're with Jesus Christ, we know how it turns out in the final moment," he said. "I've read the last chapter in the book, and we do end up winning."

Winning? I ask Huckabee when, exactly, he thinks victory will arrive. "When I was eighteen, I thought I had it pretty well figured out," he says. "I thought the end of the world was coming at any moment." But when I ask how his views have changed, he says only that he is "less adamant now." Huckabee, with the wisdom of age, apparently believes we have at least a day or two left until the end of the world.

The troubling thing about Huckabee's God rhetoric is that a man who is glad that Christians will "win" at Armageddon must be happy about the rest of us losing. When I press him on whether he believes all non-Christians are eternally damned, Huckabee is evasive. "Being president isn't about picking who goes to heaven and who goes to hell," he says. When none other than Bill O'Reilly hammered him on the same point a day later, Huckabee conceded that "I believe Jesus is the way to heaven.". . .

This God stuff isn't just talk with Huck. One of his first acts as governor was to block Medicaid from funding an abortion for a mentally retarded teenager who had been raped by her stepfather -- an act in direct violation of federal law, which requires states to pay for abortions in cases of rape. "The state didn't fund a single such abortion while Huckabee was governor," says Dr. William Harrison of the Fayetteville Women's Clinic. "Zero."

As president, Huck would support a constitutional amendment banning abortion and would give science a back seat to religion. "Science changes with every generation and with new discoveries, and God doesn't," he says. "So I'll stick with God if the two are in conflict."

2007 . . .

REVEREND HUCKABEE WOULD BAN ABORTIONS, CONSIDERS HOMOSEXUALITY A MATTER OF CHOICE

RAW STORY - According to presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, homosexual behavior is a choice. "We may have certain tendencies, but [we choose] how we behave and how we carry out our behavior," Huckabee said in an interview Sunday with Tim Russert of MSNBC's "Meet the Press." Huckabee is known for his controversial remarks regarding homosexuality; as Russert reminded him, Huckabee once said he felt it was a "aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle."

Although Huckabee asked Russert to understand that "when a Christian speaks of sin, a Christian says all of us are sinners," he asserted that "the perfection of God is seen in a marriage in which one man, one woman live together as a couple committed to each other as life partners.". . .

When Russert then asked why he would ban all abortions, Huckabee responded, "that's not just because I'm a Christian, that's because I'm an American. Our founding fathers said that we're all created equal."

He believes that a ban on abortion would not be an example of imposing his faith on Americans, but that his pro-life stance is "a human belief. It goes to the heart of who we are as a civilization."

"If you take the life and suction out the pieces of an unborn child for no reason than its inconvenience to the mother, I don't think you've lived up to your Hippocratic Oath of doing no harm," Huckabee said.

Therefore, he said he would support "sanctioning" doctors who perform abortions.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Mike_Huckabee_Homosexual_behavior_is_choice_1230.html

HUCKABEE DOESN'T THINK INTELLIGENT DESIGN INCLUDES TORNADOS

DAVID KNOWLES - From the LA Times comes a rather disturbing tale of the way in which Mike Huckabee wielded his religious sword as Governor of Arkansas. In particular, one incident involved quick passage of a bill designed to aid tornado victims in the town of Arkadelphia.

"Five days after the tornado tore through the state, this city of 10,000 lay in ruins. The cyclone destroyed an office building, a bank, a pharmacy and 70 other businesses. The electricity was out. The National Guard patrolled the streets. Six people were dead. In Little Rock, GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee was reviewing a disaster insurance measure that he intended to support when he become troubled: The bill, drawing on centuries-old legal terminology, referred to natural disasters as 'acts of God.'"

So, because he could not fathom his God wreaking such senseless destruction upon the world, Huckabee held up the measure for three more weeks, imploring lawmakers to change the apparently contentious wording from "acts of God" to "natural disasters." Clearly, as one Arkansas state legislator suggested at the time, Job and Exodus--with their numerous super-natural plagues--do not appear to be Huckabee's favorite parts of the Old Testament. . .

AP - Huckabee said, "I refuse to walk through tornado damage and to say that what destroyed it was God and what built it back was only human beings. I saw God protect a lot of people, save a lot of people. That's an act of God, too."

Arkansas' House, after debating God's role in the world, decided to use both phrases. "To say God didn't create tornadoes is just like saying he didn't create spring rains," said Rep. Jim Luker, a Democrat.