Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

The New York Times has an interesting profile of some of Huckabee's success. Some excerpts:

Much of the national leadership of the Christian conservative movement has turned a cold shoulder to the Republican presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee, wary of his populist approach to economic issues and his criticism of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. But that has only fired up Brett and Alex Harris.

They say they like Mr. Huckabee for the same reason many of their elders do not: “He reaches outside the normal Republican box,” Brett Harris said in an interview from his home near Portland, Ore.

The brothers fell for Mr. Huckabee last August when they saw him draw applause on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” for explaining that he believed in a Christian obligation to care for prenatal “life” and also education, health care, jobs and other aspects of “life.” “It is a new kind of evangelical conservative position,” Brett Harris said. Alex Harris added, “And we are not going to have to be embarrassed about him.”

 

In Michigan, the Huckabee campaign had spent no money, hired no staff and had no office until last Wednesday, six days before the primary. But Gary Glenn, a conservative Christian advocate based in Midland, Mich., has been leading an informal effort to turn out evangelical voters. Some pollsters expect them to make up as much as 40 percent of the state’s primary voters this year.

Last week, Mr. Glenn lined up 50 local pastors to attend a closed-door breakfast with Mr. Huckabee in Grand Rapids. And he has compiled an e-mail list of more than 600 volunteers — many in Internet groups that Huck’s Army is connecting — who have been using church directories to make phone calls, courting local pastors and leafleting church parking lots.

“Recruit volunteers to stand this Sunday on public sidewalks across the street from the parking lots of the biggest evangelical churches you can find,” Mr. Glenn urged in a recent e-mail message.

Huckabee volunteers are also working hard to court Catholics in Michigan, said Jeffrey Quesnelle, a 20-year-old conservative Catholic who is now the Michigan coordinator for Huck’s Army. (The Harris brothers have signed up state coordinators in 45 states.) Among other things, Mr. Quesnelle said, volunteers have been distributing copies of articles from the Web site Catholic Online, a hub for dedicated church members, praising Mr. Huckabee’s opposition to abortion rights and his empathy for the poor as consistent with the social teachings of the church.

But more than 500 people, many of them young evangelicals, have signed up for online Huckabee meet-up groups, said Christian Hine, 30, the state coordinator of the Huck’s Army effort. Unaided by the campaign, volunteers have borrowed church directories and bought their own phone lists to try to identify likely Huckabee voters, Mr. Hine said, and even paid to print their own Huckabee signs when the campaign ran out.

“Huckabee is a change for the conservative Christian movement, and a welcome one,” said Jennifer Stec, a 34-year-old homemaker in Lexington, S.C., who built a network of about 400 Huckabee volunteers. She started with her church Sunday school class, she said, and later printed her own Huckabee business cards and passed them out at the supermarket.

Alice Stewart, a spokesman for Mr. Huckabee, said the campaign “would love to have the support of the generals” of the Christian conservative movement, “but we are more than happy to have the support of the troops, and that seems to be what is happening here.” Ms. Stewart said the Harris brothers were especially “instrumental,” pointing out that they helped enlist the actor Chuck Norris, who now accompanies Mr. Huckabee on the trail.

The article also delves into how Huckabee's candidacy is undermining the Christian establishment in Washington. The whole piece is a recommended read.

The Washington Christian establishment lost a lot credibility among activists when Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani. Additionally, major leaders of the Christian establishment endorsed or tacitly supported less religious candidates. It left the 'roots in chaos and searching for an alternative. 

Huckabee has tapped into the conservative populism of Middle America. He is emerging as a major leader of the Christian conservative movement in his own right. And as the former President of the Southern Baptist Convention quite well, you could argue that he always has been.