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The Daily Brew 
Friday, January 4, 2008
The Republican Divorce

It is hard to get inspired by politics when Harry Reid is scheming to figure out a way to excuse the nation’s telephone companies for illegally spying on us.  So if you missed Obama’s speech last night, do yourself a favor and watch it.	

As pathetic as it is to admit, about the only the thing that can get me to set aside my cynicism and contempt for our elected overlords is the soaring rhetoric of speeches like Obama’s.  I know it is stupid, but like Pavlov’s dog, when I hear the voice of the America I believed in during my youth, it gets me every time.  My head tells me its an illusion, but my heart rules.  I guess I still want to be proud of my country badly enough that when the right notes are played, the chord still strikes.

So I loved Obama’s speech.  At the same time, I think it is still too soon to accurately gauge the impact of his historic victory.  Time will tell if he can seal the deal.  I don’t feel the same way about the Republicans, however.  Regardless of who wins the nomination, Mike Huckabee’s win last night is going to rock their world.

Even though Huckabee will likely lose in New Hampshire, by winning last night on the wings of Iowa’s evangelicals, he now has South Carolina in the bag.  Ever since Lee Atwater was teaching Karl Rove how to forge government letterhead, the South Carolina primary has been the GOP’s Alamo. Anyone not pre-approved by the money guys was buried in the fever swamps behind the South Carolina firewall.  

The pawns in this process are and always have been the most gullible members of the party.  But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. While they might believe that Bennie Hinn can cure cancer, there is a limit to their credulity. Specifically, nobody is going to ever convince these people that they are better off voting for a Mormon (or a New York Mayor in drag) than a Baptist pastor. As a result, Huckabee has set the immovable object of the GOP, of huge bags of cash controlled by their plutocrats, directly in the path of the irresistible force, the foot soldiers of the Christian right.  

These two camps got married in the 1980s to form a union of the true believers.  Except like so many shotgun weddings, the two sides didn’t really see eye to eye. One side believed in money, or more specifically that the divine right of Kings that decreed that they should always control it. The other side believes in God. Or at least the version of God that hates gays and thinks women are property.  

For the past two decades, they’ve stayed together for the three kids of different fathers, abortion, gay marriage and tax cuts.  But now Huckabee won’t dance, at least to the plutocrat’s tune, so they are about to get divorced. The money guys know that if they don’t stop Huckabee before South Carolina, there is a good chance they won’t be able to stop him at all. And if Huckabee wins the nomination, the plutocrats could lose control of the GOP.

So Obama should enjoy his moment in the sun, but he ought to pay careful attention to the shitstorm that is about to rain down on Mike Huckabee like the battle of Armageddon.  Because if Obama is can sing his song sweetly enough over the next month and a half to win the Democratic nomination, that same storm is fixin’ to rain on his parade next.

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