the main stream corporatists of the GOP (think the National Review and Wall Street Journal crowd) are absolutely APPALLED at the possibility of a Huckabee win!

Absolutely. The media are overwhelmingly liberal, but these two sources (and some others), which are conservative, are thorougly Northeastern-based establishmentarian. I bet many of them would love RINOs like Giuliani, Romney, or McCain, or Arlen Specter, etc. Don’t forget the vile behavior by the media in 1992 toward Perot on election night.

What Huckabee said about exploitation of the Religious Right by the Republican Party (their votes are taken for granted; they’re allowed on the bus but never to have a say in where the bus is going) was absolutely correct.

It’s so obvious even a non-religious guy, non-social-conservative like me can see what’s happening to them.

For every person who reacted negatively to the Christmas ad, I suspect two reacted positively.

Yes, and the quality as well as the quantity is higher. Plenty of us have no problem with the mainstream Religious Right and we recoil at the bigoted and hateful behavior by the Left directed at anyone who is religious (except black Baptists who vote reliably Democratic, or the Jewish votes for Democrats that are expected nearly as much).

Huckabee is much less defective than either Giuliani or Romney, and has some positive things to offer (decent, normal) people. That is the key issue here.

I agree with “Talking Dog” that National Review is appalled by Huckabee, since they’ve already endorsed Gov. Romney for the GOP nomination. But if on any given Sunday 40% of Americans attend church, and he can garner 2/3 of those votes, that’s a good start for next November’s election.

As for the ad…

For every person who reacted negatively to the Christmas ad, I suspect two reacted positively. It’s not just Christians saying “Merry Christmas” this year, and probably some of those even live in New Hampshire, where the ad ran. Ed Rollins coming to head the campaign was certainly Huckabee’s best Christmas gift this year!

Say what you want. Huckabee is smooth, and he has enough positions that appeal to moderates (creative on immigration, believes in global warming, responsible taxation) that he could very well peel off enough votes to win the Big Chair.

It was a subliminal message, just as it was a subtle way of telling voters, “I’m the Christian, Romney is the Mormon.”

What is remarkable is that, having created the golum/monster of activating the Christian right into the Republican Party mainstream, now that there is a genuine God’s honest Christian like Huckabee in there (a Baptist minister and everything, with a Bible College degree no less)… the main stream corporatists of the GOP (think the National Review and Wall Street Journal crowd) are absolutely APPALLED at the possibility of a Huckabee win! In their view, the whole point of activating the Christian right was to cynically exploit its disproportionate electoral power to advance their corporatist ends! A fake Christian like GW Bush who was really a corporate shill was just fine… but someone like Huckabee who thinks that Christ taught about helping the poor– even if it means raising the capital gains tax… well, the vapors don’t begin to describe their reaction!

Injecting this kind of religion (and apparently a religious litmus test) into our public discourse is absolutely anathema to what the Constitution stands for… HOWEVER– it seems consistent with democratic values, as large numbers of people seem to think that this is o.k. (though until Huckabee, no one blatantly put it into a t.v. add before).

Of course, given the mania over the steel columns that ended up forming a cross in the World Trade Center ruins (not to mention the Congress overwhelming passing a Christian country resolution recently), none of this is a surprise; it was only a matter of time before someone put not only Jesus, but the cross, directly into the political discourse of a campaign.

Look: Romney’s speech was absolutely disgusting; let me not mince words. Quite contrary to doing what JFK did, and state that religious matters are PRIVATE– and have no place being litmus tests for public service or otherwise directly injected into the public sphere– Romney just tried to say YES THERE IS SUCH A RELIGIOUS LITMUS TEST… and me, being WHITE and sorta Christian should be good enough for the rest of you! Huck just trumped that… and said “I’m even Whiter and Christianer”.
This is absolutely anathema to our Constitutional system… but its how its being played now.

Again… the funniest part to me is how, having had people like Michael Reagan’s father activating this particular group into the party for the party’s own cynical corporate ends, now that decades later, a true believer is coming to the fore… they go absolutely crazy! It might be hilarious, if this particular group of cynical bastards weren’t currently in control of our country.