Why Doesn’t the Right Embrace Huckabee?

Christian leaders care about tax breaks, not charity, NYT argues
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 25, 2007 9:07 PM CDT
Why Doesn’t the Right Embrace Huckabee?
Republican presidential hopeful former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, talks to students at the Concord High School in Concord, N.H. Friday Oct. 19, 2007. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter)   (Associated Press)

Why is it that leaders of the religious right aren’t rallying behind authentically conservative Mike Huckabee, wonders  New York Times columnist Gail Collins. Huckabee—who Collins notes is “on his first wife and first position on abortion”—is the obvious conservative choice, she proposes, but Values Voter sages are holding out for a top-tierer to move in their direction—“a strategy any woman who’s had an unsatisfactory boyfriend could warn them” against, Collins jokes.

On the less-than-orthodox front, the Arkansas governor supports new government spending on children’s health and education; he also once helped to free a convict who then became a murderer. But Collins concludes that conservative leaders’ refusal to back Huckabee shows that Christian charity has become a negative for those who maintain “God’s top priority is eliminating the estate tax.” (More Mike Huckabee stories.)

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