Huckabee Exposes GOP Fault Line

Populist candidate prompts a Main Street v. Wall Street split
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 21, 2007 7:32 PM CST
Huckabee Exposes GOP Fault Line
This image from video released by the Huckabee Campaign shows Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in a campaign ad titled "What Really Matters". In the ad Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, appeals to the Republican Party's important conservative Christian...   (Associated Press)

The unexpected surge of populist Mike Huckabee has exposed a core Republican rift, separating the religious right from the financial conservatives, EJ Dionne writes in the New Republic. Hucksters tend to be socially conservative but they're  tired of seeing protection of the wealthy prioritized above family values, and they're not antithetical to government to assistance the poor, he writes.

Mike’s faithful have disobeyed Christian leaders who typically keep Bible Belters in line, putting the fear of God into party leaders. Endorsing Mitt Romney, the National Review worried that Huckabee would alienate the Wall Street right and could pull apart the party's coalition. Dionne says it's already happened: On the "Today" show Wednesday, Huckabee said "the Wall Street-to-Washington axis, this corridor of power, is absolutely, frantically against me." (More Mike Huckabee stories.)

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