News
December 13, 2007 - Mike Huckabee's Candidacy Rating
Revised From B To C+
On December 3, 2007, Zev Chafets of the New York Times Magazine
interviewed Governor Mike Huckabee, who has now confirmed the following exchange:
"I asked Huckabee, who describes himself as the only Republican
candidate with a degree in theology, if he considered Mormonism a cult or a
religion. 'I think it's a reli-gion,' he said. 'I really don't know much about
it.' I was about to jot down this piece of boilerplate when Huckabee surprised
me with a question of his own: 'Don't Mormons,' he asked in an innocent voice,
'believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?'"
Are we to believe that Mike Huckabee never learned about Mormonism during his
evangelical Christian education? Didn't
Mike Huckabee graduate from Ouachita Baptist University, attend Southwestern Theological Seminary and then
spend twelve years preaching full time? Was the question really posed
because an ordained
Christian pastor all of a sudden felt that a reporter may be able to
answer his question about Mormon beliefs?
Or did Mike Huckabee know this to be a
Mormon
blasphemy and was trying to slip in the question
"in an innocent
voice", hoping to set the media after his rival?
While the way he went about this may be attributed to inexperience in national
politics, what Mike Huckabee did next cannot. When the liberal and even the
conservative media turned on him instead, Mike Huckabee actually
apologized and
declared to a national
television audience that Mitt Romney's Mormonism is a "non-issue".
In his speech, Mitt Romney claimed that the Mormon church was just another
church. A rival candidate and former Baptist minister has now in effect affirmed
that claim. Regardless of who is
voted
into the White House, Mormonism has already benefited from this election and will lead thousands, if not millions
more astray from the Bible in the years ahead.
Mike Huckabee
's lack of
political fortitude is discouraging and frustrating, especially in light of his
televised ad declaration,
"Let us never sacrifice our principles for
anybody's politics. Not now, not ever." With regrets, our rating
on the candidacy we originally had expected to score an
A is revised from
B to
C+.
