Scarier Than A Fake Monster

You want to know something that scares me? Like worse than that damned Cloverfield movie did? (ask my husband… I think he still has a scar on his leg from when I latched on to him shortly after screaming like a 12-year girl).

Mike Huckabee. That man scares the living shit out of me.

What scares me more than Mike Huckabee? The idea that pundits are placing him as a legitimate candidate for the 2012 elections.

If you're not familiar with Huckabee, I'm sure you can check my back logs for some of the wonderful things he did/said during the 2008 race and since, but I can sum it up pretty concisely: He's a fundamentalist Christian former-pastor that believes in bringing religion "to the table" while governing. That's not the scary part though, mainly because that is not enough to get a guy elected. The scary part is that he's smart, he's funny, he's articulate and he's likable.

Essentially, he's Sarah Palin with intelligence.

He's scary because he supports anti-gay initiatives, up to and including punishing those who deign to rule for equality in cases involving LGBT folk. He's A-OK with the ouster of three Iowa Supreme Court judges simply because they ruled in favor of marriage equality. In fact, he thinks that is "a sign" and he's ready to harness that energy:

"The significance and historic nature of the judicial elections here in Iowa were far bigger than the borders of Iowa," he said. "It was a very important statement that voters made, a statement that resonated across the country and one that I think will give legs to a larger movement over the next few years."

So while he's scarier than Palin to me, I have to wonder what a Republican primary race would look like if you have two or three ultra-conservative candidates running? Would Palin and Huckabee try to out-conservative each other? What if someone like Mitt Romney jumped in on the fun? And would an election based on vitriol and religious fundamentalism really advance anything in this country, or would it only provide further fuel for the "us vs. them" crowd?

It seems to me that the right-wing of this country has decidedly co-opted fundamentalist Christianity. Or should that be the other way around? It doesn't matter really which way it happened, but it does matter that it is scary and cannot lead to anything good for this country.