Bob Novak writes:
Who would respond to criticism from the Club for Growth by calling the conservative, free-market campaign organization the "Club for Greed"? That sounds like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards, all Democrats preaching the class struggle. In fact, the rejoinder comes from Mike Huckabee, who has broken out of the pack of second-tier Republican presidential candidates to become a serious contender -- definitely in Iowa and perhaps nationally. Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know that he is a high-tax, protectionist, big-government advocate of a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans.
Novak is right. Huckabee is no conservative. He is a big spending, bleeding heart liberal. Sure he may be "socially conservative", but that term is an oxymoron.
In fact, anytime the word social is put in front of the word conservative, just go ahead and cross out the conservative part, because the politician in question surely isn't one. Huckabee is a disaster. In fact he is even less conservative than George Bush, the President who expanded government even more than Lyndon Johnson.
Huckabee, Guiliani, no this isn't your father's Republican Party. It might be your father's Democratic Party, which by the way, looks quite conservative compared to today's Democrats.
Novak sums up the evolution of the Republican Party with this statement:
The rise of evangelical Christians as the motive force that blasted the GOP out of minority status during the past generation always contained an inherent danger if these new Republican acolytes supported not merely a conventional conservative but one of their own.
The danger is a serious contender for the nomination who passes the litmus test of social conservatives on abortion, gay marriage and gun control but is far removed from the conservative-libertarian model of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.
As one of those conservative-libertarian, Goldwater/Reagan types, who also happens to be an evangelical, that truth breaks my heart. Regardless of the way the media covers most church types, they are actually more in line with modern liberalism than conservatism. Most are not really that conservative at all, but part of that group once called Reagan Democrats. If you don't believe me, ask the average Baptist what he or she (especially she) thinks of TennCare? Why do you think we have TennCare in this Bible Belt state?
