The Democrats presidential clown car is full of slick, slicker and slickest versions of the usual suspects. They’ve all cemented their connections to big business, lack the courage or the ability to end the war and they all pander to bigots.

The Republican clown car is different; its occupants are sick, sicker and sickest. Sickest of all is Giuliani, connected not just to big business but to more ominous types through his gangster bud Kerik. McCain, who is panting to pay back the Vietnamese by murdering Iraqis falls into the ‘Sicker’ category.

Huckabee is somewhere between sickest and sicker. An article by Matt Taibbi, a writer for Rolling Stone, describes Huckabee as representing “… 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.”

Politicians like Huckabee abounded in the depression period and were a sign that politics were being realigned along the lines of class against class and profoundly shaken up. Today we’re in the very early stages of a similar development. In the depression Democrats Father Coughlin and Huey Long both combined religious superstition and populist demagoguery and attracted large followings.

Beyond his populism though, we have to keep in mind that Huckabee, like Hillary Clinton is profoundly religious. Matt Taibbi again. “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. 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."

Huckabee, a southern baptist, worked for gay basing evangelist James Robison who claims that ‘gays seduce and kill children’. He supports the FairTax plan which would abolish progressive income taxes and replace them by a very regressive 23% federal sales taxes. The rich would soon get much, much richer and the poor would get poorer.

The time is not yet ripe for rightwing populists like Huckabee to be hazardous. However, any number of uncontrollable events could send the economy and our standards of living into a steep nosedive. That and the economic and human costs of losing in the Middle East are potent destabilizing factors. What we can say is that sometime during the next administration American political life will begin to shift and buckle in earnest. By that time we have to have an independent political voice and a party in place to prevent an out of control rightward shift.

Right now both those requirements can be met if we join and build the labor union founded and funded US Labor Party.

It's funny - I'm watching the YouTube debates now and so far Huckabee seems the most polished, professional and personable. (How's that for alliteration? A Democrat was in office when I went to school.) I catch myself thinking, "He'll be the one they choose in the end." I dunno.

I'd think the same thing too, Bil, if it weren't for the fac thtat he can't fundraise well and the Club for Growth hates him. Has the Club for Growth ever been bucked when it comes to picking a GOP nominee?

Alex--

I don't think the CfG has been around long enough to draw reliable trendlines. I doubt their types were too fond of selecting Bob Dole, though.

The one thing he might be able to get away with, though, is to swing an Iowa win as a fundraising coup. Kerry '04 was out of money going into the Iowa caucuses, too

He's obviously the best campaigner. His delivery at the debate was practically flawless - although he was given some easy questions. (Ask the preacher about the Bible? Geez.) He made the audience laugh and I even caught myself nodding along to a few of his more reasonable points. And I laughed when he answered the Log Cabin Republicans question "I need all the endorsements I can get."