Andrew Sullivan live-blogged the GOP presidential candidate debate on November 28. He had some interesting observations.
About the ultra-religionist Republican Party that Karl Rove helped bring about:
I'm not a fiscal liberal, or a supporter of the death penalty, or someone who believes that a candidacy for the presidency of the United States should be based on someone's religious faith. So Huckabee is not for me. But he is easily the most appealing candidate for the current big-spending, evangelical, Southern Republican party. I don't find his religious schtick in any way appealing. It's glib in one area where glibness really is inappropriate. To say something like "Jesus was far too smart to seek public office" may have a superficial appeal, but it is also a cheapening of Jesus' radical injunction to forswear worldly power and wealth. To use such a cheap line to score a laugh in a political debate is not something I find particularly admirable.
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[Y]ou can see why Huckabee is rising.... [H]e does have the most important qualification of anyone on stage: ["]A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.["]Think of tonight as Rove's Frankenstein moment.
Sullivan rightly referred to the GOP as "a religiously-based organization," and pointed out that many in the GOP "believe that religion should define public institutions, including the military."
Here is a summary of what he feels "Bush and Rove have achieved"
the suspension of secular politics in the Republican party, and, by inference, the country as a whole. This has become, thanks to Bush and Rove, a religious contest. And that's why, in today's GOP, Huckabee is the proper leader. It's a church; and he's a minister. It's a match made in heaven.