I was talking recently to a friend of mine who resented the fact that far too many presidential candidates, on both sides of the aisle, emphasize religion in their campaigns. They are running for president, my friend insisted, not preacher. It’s a secular office, in a secular government; all the religious rhetoric is excessive.
I’m very sympathetic to this perspective, but I’m beginning to wonder if one candidate deserves something of an exemption. TNR’s Michael Crowley highlighted this experience at an event in Iowa for Hillary Clinton, where he spoke with a local woman who looked to be in her late 60s, who’d just heard Bill Clinton on the stump.
She’d been undecided before seeing Bill tonight but is now backing Hillary. “He made me believe all the things that I’ve sort of been questioning about,” she said with a charmed smile.
Then I asked her what her friends and neighbors are saying about the other candidates. She said there was a lot of debate and indecision, and that people have concerns about each candidates’ particular weaknesses. Specifically, she said some people are “worried” about Obama’s race, and whether it might make him unelectable. She continued:
“That, and the fact that he’s a Muslim,” she said, without a trace of irony or guile. “That’s where we got all our problems from.”
“Do you really believe it’s a fact that he’s a Muslim?” I asked. “Because it’s not true.”
“Well, that’s what I’ve heard,” she replied, seemingly unfazed.
This was an engaged voter, who’s going to caucus tomorrow, and she’s “heard” that Obama is a Muslim. Indeed, she’s so certain it’s true, she’s willing to talk to a reporter, on the record, about it, as if it were an obvious fact.
Every time I hear Obama talk about his church, his Christianity, and/or his community organizing in Chicago with religious groups, I remind myself that he has an added hurdle that the other candidates don’t — he has to remind voters that the bogus rumors they’ve probably heard are patently false.
Mike Huckabee, however, doesn’t have that excuse.
It therefore makes his over-the-top religious rhetoric far less reasonable.
Two nights before the crucial first-in-the-nation caucuses, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee appealed to God to grant his supporters guidance as the former Arkansas governor struggled to maintain his tenuous lead.
“We cannot do it,” he said referring to Thursday night’s Republican caucus, “by arming ourselves and taking anyone out. We will go to the caucuses having knelt on our knees and having asked God for his wisdom.”
Also yesterday, he reportedly told a group of pro-Huckabee bloggers that they’re “doing the Lord’s work.”
And in case his previous faith-based campaign commercials weren’t enough, the new one features Huckabee speaking in front of a banner with a Christian fish.
Unless there’s an organized effort to convince people that Mike Huckabee is a secret Muslim, all of this is entirely unnecessary, crass, and exploitative.