I Heart Huckabees ?  

Crikey has a look at some of the mud-slinging going on in the US as the various presidential candidates do their best to publicise all their competitors' real, imagined and entirely fabricated failings - "You say Obama and I say Osama ...". I wonder if Huckabee's presidential motorcade will sport "rapture ready" bumper stickers should he somehow win next year...

The other day an acquaintance in Michigan explained to me that religion had become an issue in the US election because "Muslims like Barack Obama were running." Where did this ordinary, affable American get the idea that Oprah Winfrey’s favourite Democrat was a Muslim?

From the media, actually.

A few days, earlier, right-wing outlets like Fox News, the New York Post, and the Glenn Beck Program on CNN had claimed that Obama had been schooled at a "madrassa" – a Muslim religious school.

The implication was clear. He wasn’t the nice young fellow you saw on TV but a violent jihadist. Why, his name even rhymed with "Osama"!

Something similar’s been taking place in the Republican campaign, with frontrunner Mike Huckabee providing a masterclass in launching whispering campaigns. Most recently, in a conversation with the New York Times, Huckabee innocently inquired: ‘"Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

That would be Mormons rather like Huckabee’s main rival, Mitt Romney. One imagines that, if Obama can be successfully tarred as an Islamist, fearful believers across the country already picture the former Massachusetts Governor consorting with demons.

Yet, as a number of commentators have pointed out, the same NYT interview raises fascinating questions about Huckabee’s own religious affiliations. Specifically, it reveals that he’s just been endorsed by Tim LaHaye.

Tim Lawho? LaHaye shot to fame as the author of Left Behind novels, airport-style thrillers set during the apocalypse. The books have sold gazillions of copies to fundamentalist Christians, spawning movies, children’s books and, most recently, a video game in which players rampage through New York, gunning down anyone who refuses to embrace gentle Jesus.

But the Left Behind books are not just about loopy theology. They’re also about loopy politics. In LaHaye’s world, the Antichrist takes the form of the secretary-general of the United Nations, the Iraq war represents the first stages in the battle between Satan and JC, and the destruction of the Palestinian Authority was ordained by scripture.

LaHaye’s currently helping organize Mike Huckabee’s campaign, setting up special meetings for him in three states with an influential audience of specially selected pastors. So, as Jonathan Zimmerman notes, "it's perfectly fair to ask whether Huckabee sees eye to eye with LaHaye."

After all, some Americans might even prefer a Muslim to a would-be President who considers himself actively working to hasten the end of the world.

While Huckabee may be the favoured candidate of the "Left Behind" section of the American population (and I sometimes feel sorry for them, to be honest - turning to fundamentalism seems to be a common reaction for powerless people who feel like they are being harshly treated by remote forces), he doesn't come off all that badly in Grist's look at the candidate's environmental credentials (interview here) - he sounds like a conservative Democrat (albeit an openly god-bothering one).

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who served as governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, touts energy independence as one of his top priorities. He dodges the issue of whether humans are responsible for global warming, saying we don't know for sure, but argues that we should still act to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Whenever he's asked about climate change or the environment, he wraps in religion, saying we have a spiritual obligation to protect God's creation.

Key Points

* Places high priority on energy independence. On his campaign site, he says, "The first thing I will do as president is send Congress my comprehensive plan for energy independence. We will achieve energy independence by the end of my second term."
* Is not convinced that climate change is largely driven by human activity, but believes we should take steps to curb greenhouse-gas emissions anyway.
* Supports a mandatory, economy-wide cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States.
* Supports expansion of nuclear energy.
* Supports oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore in U.S. waters, but says, "In the long term, we need to get off oil altogether."
* Supports raising fuel-economy standards for automobiles to 35 miles per gallon by 2020.
* Emphasizes that there's a religious and moral imperative to conserve resources and protect the earth.