Huckabee blunders

The Huckster made a major, major mistake in his NY Times interview.

Here it is:

Huckabee is, indeed, a discreet fellow, but he has no trouble making his feelings known. He mentioned how much he respected his fellow candidates John McCain and Rudolph W. Giuliani. The name of his principal rival in Iowa, Mitt Romney, went unmentioned. Romney, a Mormon, had promised that he would be addressing the subject of his religion a few days later. 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 religion,’’ 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?’’

His campaign released this statement:

“A report released tonight cites an upcoming article in the Sunday edition of The New York Times Magazine which quotes former Arkansas Governor and Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee asking a question about the content of the Mormon faith. In fact, the full context of the exchange makes it clear that Governor Huckabee was illustrating his unwillingness to answer questions about Mormonism and to avoid addressing theological questions during this campaign.’

‘Governor Huckabee has said consistently that he believes this campaign should center on a discussion of the important issues confronting our nation,’ said Senior Advisor, Dr. Charmaine Yoest, ‘and not focus on questions of religious belief. He wants to assure persons of all faith traditions of his firm commitment to religious tolerance and freedom of worship. Governor Huckabee believes that one of the great strengths of our nation lies in its diversity of thought, opinion and faith.’”

Huckabee has personally apologized for this to Romney, and at the debate made his "New Year's Resolution" to be more careful in what he says.

But this blunder goes against the strategy that the campaign has been using, which is to deemphasize religion. Everyone knows Huckabee's religious, so there's no point in campaigning on it, rather the smart thing is to reach out to other voters. It's the same way with any candidate's attributes. Hillary doesn't go around reminding people that her husband was a well-regarded president, Romney doesn't constantly emphasize that he's got that presidential appearance and big bank account that will help him win the presidency. Candidate attributes that are well-known will be focused on by other people, and the candidate himself or herself should be mute on the subject.

In other words, the campaign memo lays out precisely their strategy. Huckabee's slip of the tongue was 180-degrees contrary to that strategy. It makes him look like he's sending out coded messages to evangelicals.

Here's Rush Limbaugh's reaction:

RUSH: I'm going to tell you something about this. One more thing here, before we move on, on Romney and Huckabee and Huckabee saying, "Well, doesn't Romney believe that Jesus and the Devil were brothers?" What this does... I happen to think that Romney... Look, you can figure this out, too. Romney has to have been waiting for something like this to happen. He's probably surprised it's taken this long. He knows what a target his religion is. That's why he gave the speech last week. He's been waiting for this. It puts him on the high ground, I think. I think the way he came back and what he said is over the top. What did he say? This is "going too far." Attacking somebody's religion is going too far. I'll tell you something. I mentioned this the other day. There's a history of Democrats attacking the religion of conservatives, Christianity and evangelicals and the people who practice them. This time, it's a Christian attacking a Mormon and so forth. But it gives Romney the high ground, temporarily. It just know he had to be waiting for this. He just had to be -- and these things tend to work themselves out.

I agree completely. The Huckster's blunder helps Romney so much. It makes his religion speech all the more powerful. It gives him the high ground. It makes Huckabee look small and sniping. The damage is bad to the Huckster.

However, look how effectively Huckabee responded. He personally apologized to Romney. His two main soundbites from the debate were his New Year's Resolution, and his desire to be president for all the people, which made a strong contrast to Romney's fantastically unrealistic "I'm gonna promise everything I have to get your vote" list of items he'll start working on in his first year in office. The damage-control by Huckabee ensures that in all probability this won't be a story that lasts more than a few cycles.

As a side note, there's a more full explanation of Mormon beliefs from an apologetic Mormon website (I got this link from Juan Cole). It ends with this:

So it can be said that Jesus and Lucifer were brothers, in the sense of both being spiritually begotten by the Father, but it is a misrepresentation to say so without giving the contextual background. Whatever similarities in background exist between Jesus and Satan pale compared to the differences. Jesus is the Beloved and Chosen, who is the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh.