All the attention on Huckabee and Romney

On the Democratic side, the media are all over the Obama/Oprah show and reaction by the Clinton campaign. But in the Republican field, they’re focused on former governors Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.

Newsweek’s cover this week is “Holy Huckabee!” This is its framework:

It has become a requirement for presidential candidates, Republicans and Democrats alike, to make a public declaration of faith. Some are more comfortable doing it than others. Rudy Giuliani, never a churchgoer, says his bout with prostate cancer made him more spiritual. Mitt Romney has struggled to find the right words to describe his lifelong religious convictions without alienating those suspicious of his Mormon religion. But for Huckabee, Christian faith is not merely a talking point—it is the talking point, the basis for his claim to lead.

The media are scrutinizing Huckabee more now because of his rapid rise in popularity. Will he survive it?

Douglas MacKinnon raises the possibility I’ve been thinking, that those who control information and public opinion want Huckabee to be the candidate.

If you are the eventual Democratic nominee for President in 2008, who would you like to run against? Answer: A Republican you can beat.

Chris Matthews, of MSNBC, recently asked, “Why is the liberal media giving Huckabee a free ride?” Could the answer be as obvious as the liberal media thinks that they have war-gamed this election better than conservatives? Did they look at the Republican field and try to ascertain who would be the weakest “non-fringe” candidate?

Huckabee certainly doesn’t seem to be concerned about weakness or strength based on media coverage. He’s out there giving talks like this.

Government may have dropped the ball in modern American society, but religion dropped it first, Gov. Mike Huckabee told Southern Baptist pastors Sunday night.
   
“The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity,” he said. “And the reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior.”

Meanwhile, media continue to analyze The Speech Gov. Romney gave the other day about religion and government. Robert Novak is not as admiring as some.

ABC reports that Romney believes America is ready to elect a Mormon president. Novak and other columnists think not.

All this brings up an issue David Limbaugh considers in this Townhall column.

The surfacing of the “religion question” in the Republican presidential primary campaigns of both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee has raised important issues and exposed much public confusion about the intersection of religion and politics.

The media are feeding the confusion.

It’s one thing to read the First Amendment Establishment Clause as prohibiting the slightest government endorsement of the Christian religion…But it’s taking it to an entirely new level to say that it precludes public officeholders from allowing their Christian worldview to influence their policy preferences or governance.

Public officials cannot separate their worldview from their governance without gutting themselves into ciphers. Their policy agenda will necessarily reflect their value system. Voters in turn properly base their decisions on candidates in part on their respective values and how closely they resemble their own.

A friend of mine objects that it’s wrong for Christians to impose their values through the laws. He cites Justice David Souter’s opinion saying the government can’t prefer one religion over another.

My friend is merely restating the popular misunderstanding that we cannot legislate morality. All laws are based on morality; the only question is whose morality is being imposed.

Emphasis added….because I say that a lot myself, and want to emphasize the point.

The pro-abortionist seeks to impose his values by law just as much as the anti-abortionist.

When a Christian legislator votes to restrict abortion, he is not using government to endorse his religion any more than a secularist legislator is endorsing atheism by opposing those restrictions.

Syndicated columnist Mark Steyn makes a somber appeal to changes the focus on the subject of religion and government.

As America demonstrates, faith thrives in a free market. In Europe, the established church, whether formal (the Church of England) or informal (as in Catholic Italy and Spain), killed religion as surely as state ownership killed the British car industry. When the Episcopal Church degenerates into wimpsville relativist milquetoast mush, Americans go elsewhere. When the Church of England undergoes similar institutional decline, Britons give up on religion entirely.

Instead of a state church, Europe believes in the state as church – the all-powerful beneficent provider of cradle-to-grave welfare.

“Freedom requires religion,” said Mitt Romney, and, whether or not one agrees, in Europe big government has led naturally to small religion – a point Gov. Huckabee might want to ponder. I would rather we talked less about religion in America (which can take care of itself) and more about government, which seems to be trending in an alarmingly European direction, Democrats and Republicans disagreeing merely on the speed at which we’ll get there.