AIRING THE DIRTY LAUNDRY….In an interview with David Brody, Mike Huckabee talks about the private contempt that the moneycon-driven Republican Party has for evangelicals like him:
They were more than happy for us to come to the rallies and stand in lines for hours to cheer on the candidates, appreciated us putting up the yard signs, going out and putting out the cards on peoples doors and making phone calls to the phone banks and — really appreciated all of our votes. But when they got elected, behind closed doors, they would laugh at us and speak with scorn and derision that we were, as one article I think once said “the easily led.” So there’s been almost this sort of, it’s okay if you guys get a seat on the bus, but don’t ever think about telling us where the bus is going to go.
Say what you will about Huckabee, but he’s got their number on this. Liberals, at least, just honestly disagree with evangelical social fervor. Republican elites, by contrast, are willing to pander endlessly for evangelical votes, evangelical money, and evangelical organizing zeal, but once the elections are won they think of them, in Peggy Noonan’s recent words, as “the idiot vote.” Unless evangelical interests coincide with the moneycon wing of the party (as they do with judges, for example), they get little more than a few symbolic bones tossed their way.
As you can imagine, I’m delighted to see evangelicals finally figuring this out and getting ready to turn their longstanding misgivings into out-and-out rebellion. It’s about time this battle got fought in the full light of day.
