Huckabee vows to continue campaign

Oh, this is gonna be good .....

Huckabee vows to continue campaign

(CNN) — Mike Huckabee said Thursday he will continue his quest for the Republican nomination, and directly appealed for support from backers of Mitt Romney’s now suspended presidential bid.

"As a true authentic, consistent, conservative, I have a vision to bring hope, opportunity and prosperity to all Americans, and I'd like to ask for and welcome the support of those who had previously been committed to Mitt," Huckabee said in a statement.

Hasn't he reached the "magic number" yet, where it's mathematically impossible for him to win the nomination?

I particularly enjoyed his statement, "I have a vision to bring hope, opportunity and prosperity to all Americans." "Cause you know, he totally means all of us -- except, of course, gays, lesbians, non-Christians, immigrants, and AIDS victims ... you know, basically anyone who's different from him and his followers.

In fact, this ironic headline from the White County News (Georgia) is just too awesome:

Huckabee big winner in White

UPDATE: Why faith and politics should not mix

This election year is historic in many ways. The most obvious, of course, are that the contenders Clinton and Obama, are the first woman and first person of color who are serious contenders for the White House.

Somewhat overshadowed, however, is the new emphasis on religion in this election. Oh, we've always had religious men running for office and even being elected. But this year we have added the possibility of an evangelical Southern Baptist minister in the White House.

Yeah. Let that sink in for a minute.

I consider myself a religious person, but I have a lot of problems with organized religion. My biggest issue is that I believe that we all have God within us, and that we are born with this goodness. Life is a journey to nurture and develop that goodness. This does not mesh with most organized religions, which generally believe we are born sinners, and that life is an arduous duty to repent, with the promise of some greater reward "beyond."

I have a problem with that outlook.

Organized religions are all run by people, usually men, who stand between me and my God and dare to interpret for me what God wants. The power and authority held by those individuals corrupts, and the true meaning of their religion is lost. Add in a dose of politics, and you have a dangerous mix.

As one writer recently observed:

As churches have organized into broader structures, they have gravitated toward a political organization (where authority and power prevail) rather than following the servant-leadership of Jesus.

If Scripture accurately records the teachings and life of Jesus, then his ways are the exact opposite of the corporate top-down structure we see in so much of the politicized Christian church today.

When the “authority and power” aspect of politicized Christianity is finally decimated, the church will return to being a freedom bringing-place, where the most important people will be the children, the impoverished, the widows, and the afflicted.

So when you have someone like Mike Huckabee, who says "My faith is my life -- it defines me. My faith doesn't influence my decisions, it drives them," running for office, I am scared for our country. As a minister, he is the last person who should be interested in being President of the United States. This would be the worst of all possible worlds, combining such a deeply committed, bible-thumping, evangelical Christian with the (arguably) most powerful job in the world.

When did the religious people of this country go from doing good work, as described in the letters of my grandparents who were Baptists missionaries in China, to Mike Huckabee, running for president?

Hat tip to BagNewsNotes for the image of Huckabee autographing the bible. Yes, autographing the bible.

UPDATE: Here's a headlines from today's WaPo that should make you squirm:

Huckabee Learned Politics in Church

An open letter to Iowa Republicans: WTF?!

I understand that the choices on the Republican side were not great. Actually, they were downright craptacular. But really, Mike Huckabee? Can we just recap some of his flaws:

• Blatantly crossed a picket line this week to appear on the Tonight Show, pretending he didn't know the strike was on, even though the Machinists union -- which has endorsed Huckabee -- implored him not to appear on the show.
• Was unaware that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had lifted martial law in that country -- two weeks ago, while making this statement about Benazir Bhutto's assassination: the United States should be "trying to ascertain who’s behind it, and what impact does it have on whether or not there’s going to be martial law continued in Pakistan."
• Stated incorrectly that Pakistan shares its eastern border with Afghanistan (Afghanistan is to the west). Not important, except that it shows his lack of knowledge of that region if he doesn't know that Pakistan is west of India.
• Here on the homefront, Huck's not done much better. Trying to turn the Pakistan election crisis into some good 'ol homegrown terror, he said, "“We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.” He then followed that up with: "In light of what happened in Pakistan yesterday it's interesting that there were more Pakistanis who illegally crossed the border than of any other nationality except for those immediately south of our border -- 660 last year." Trouble is, that's not true.
• Huckabee's record in Arkansas is horrible. In his 8 years as governor, he commuted the sentences of over 700 convicted criminals -- more than his three predecessors combined. Included among those he released was Wayne Dumond, who after he was released went on to rape and murder two more women.

Good lord, do I need to go on? Do I need to remind you that his son (who was arrested last spring for trying to bring a gun onto an airplane) was fired from his job as a camp counselor after it was found that he had hanged a dog by its neck, slitting its throat and stoning it to death.

Yes, I know that's the son, not the father, but the nut doesn't fall far from the tree, as we used say in the teaching world. I mean, how else to explain what elder Huckabee said about the AIDS epidemic in 1992:

"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague."

I'm sure young Ryan White, who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion would have appreciated being isolated. But White died in 1990. Huckabee's claim is that we didn't know much about AIDS in 1992. In 1992! Yes, we did, Mike. Those of us who cared. The first AIDS cases were discovered as early as 1981, and but you must have followed the lead of Ronald Reagan, who refused to utter the term "AIDS" and allowed thousands to die before the federal government finally got involved in researching the disease.

Hell yeah I'm mad. A Mike Huckabee administration? Are you kidding me? Canada, here I come.

UPDATED: Now from FactCheck.org we find that the the negative attack ad that Huckabee held a press conference to announce he would not run, actually did run.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee raised eyebrows Dec. 31 when he told reporters at a news conference that he had decided not to run an attack ad calling rival Mitt Romney "dishonest," then ran it in front of reporters and TV cameras anyway. Now it turns out that the ad actually appeared on at least three Iowa TV stations that same day.

Update, Jan. 4: According to the Campaign Media Analysis Group of TNS Media Intelligence, the ad aired three times on the day Huckabee made his announcement, and it aired seven times in the following two days. As of Jan. 2, the most recent date for which CMAG has tallied information on the ad, Huckabee's attack ad had run four times on KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, and had appeared on Davenport stations WQAD-TV, three times; KLJB-TV, twice; and WHBF-TV, once.