TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Huckabee Maintains His Mixing Of Religion, Politics

ADVERTISEMENT

By JODI KANTOR and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, The New York Times

Published: December 6, 2007

In August 1980, as the conservative Christian movement was first transforming American politics, Ronald Reagan stood before a Dallas stadium full of 15,000 foot-stomping, hand-clapping evangelicals and pledged his fealty to the Bible.

"All the complex and horrendous questions confronting us at home and worldwide have their answer in that single book," said Reagan, the Republican presidential nominee.

Assisting with logistics for the event was a young seminary dropout named Mike Huckabee. "It was the genesis for the whole movement," Huckabee recalled of those early days.

Now Huckabee is running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, his campaign shaped by his two decades as an evangelical pastor and broadcaster.

Although he says he is running based on his career in the Arkansas governor's mansion, not the pulpit, he has grounded his views on issues such as abortion and immigration in Scripture, rallied members of the clergy for support and relied on the down-to-earth style he honed in the pulpit to help catapult him in the polls.

Huckabee risks scorn from secular voters for defending the biblical creation story against Darwin, but faces accusations from some fellow Christians that he is soft on a range of issues, including liberal thinking in his own denomination.

As a preacher and a politician, Huckabee said, he has pursued the same goal: improving lives. "For me it was never an either-or," he said of his dual careers. "The realm you do it in is less important than that you do it."

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT