The American Spectator

Chris Hall /p>

While I am not persuaded that Mike Huckabee is the right candidate, I do very much appreciate George Neumayr’s article, “Standing Athwart Huckabee, Yelling Stop.” I especially appreciate this observation, “But won’t Huckabee shatter the conservative coalition? That would be a little more persuasive if those saying this hadn’t shattered it themselves. The relative success of Ron Paul and Huckabee is not a cause of the coalition’s collapse but a reflection of it. An excessively Wilsonian foreign policy has divided defense conservatives; years of big spending has divided economic conservatives; and a tepid, stalling social conservatism has alienated moral ones.”

p>How true! How the Republican Party needs to heed it! br> — Larry Wilson br> Indianapolis, Indiana /p>

I think that Mr. Neumayr misunderstands why many conservatives do not like Huckabee, so let me say it: It is because he is not a CONSERVATIVE! Huckabee has never met a tax hike he didn’t like, he is in lockstep with the left in demonizing “the rich,” and he is on board with the global warming alarmists. Just saying that you want to disband the IRS doesn’t make you a conservative, it makes you a populist.

As for his religion, most conservatives do not dislike him because he is a Christian, they dislike him because he acts as if THAT is what makes him qualified to be President. He is, as Rush Limbaugh has pointed out, playing the same old game of identity politics and using his religion as his identity. I am a Christian and a conservative, and I don’t like his using his religion as some-sort of qualification, it just doesn’t sit right with me.

Also, I don’t see a lot of conservatives cutting McCain or Romney a lot of slack as it concerns their conservative bona fides. McCain has been savaged because of his support of McCain-Feingold and “comprehensive immigration reform” (better known as amnesty), and Romney is getting it for his recent conversions on many conservative issues.

p>If Huckabee didn’t give people such strong flashbacks of that other “Man from Hope,” he would get so much more support from conservatives. His conservative positions seem hollow to me and others, and that is why conservatives don’t like Huck! br> — Eric Edwards br> Walnut Cove, North Carolina