The Full Menagerie of Wackos

Bob Allen of ethicsdaily.com has the latest rundown of Huckabee endorsements:

Movie Star, Motivational Speaker, Pro Wrestler All Endorse Huckabee as Best Conservative Christian Candidate

The diary from earlier today by Cali Scribe ("Are We Underestimating Huckabee?") points to a view I have been expressing for several months now.  There are serious efforts to get religious right figures off the "first-tier" bandwagons of Giuliani, Romney, and Thompson.  If there was ever a presidential candidate custom-made for the religious right, it is Huckabee, and they may be coalescing.

More from Bob Allen:

Baptist motivational speaker Zig Ziglar and "Left Behind" co-author Jerry Jenkins joined a growing list of faith leaders and celebrities endorsing former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for president.
Ziglar, an internationally acclaimed motivational speaker who teaches a Sunday school class at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, described Huckabee as "the best representative of the conservative movement on the American political scene."
"I will be encouraging all voters to look closely and seriously at Mike Huckabee, the man I believe will best represent the values and beliefs of conservative Americans," Ziglar said.

Huckabee also received a boost from Jenkin's "Left Behind" co-author Tim LaHaye, who, along with his wife, Beverly, reportedly wrote letters to conservative Christians in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, inviting pastors to conferences in each state where Huckabee will be speaking.

A New York Times blog said the letter, distributed through an e-mail list of Beverly LaHaye's Concerned Women for America organization warned that "America and our Judeo-Christian heritage are under attack by a force that is more destructive than any America has faced" since Hitler. "Defeating the radical jihadists will require renewed resolve and spiritual rearmament by the evangelical pastors in America."

Huckabee's first television ad, a tongue-in-cheek commercial rolled out this week co-starring the candidate alongside actor Chuck Norris, was Tuesday's second-most viewed video on YouTube, with more than 383,000 views.

"Mike Huckabee's a lifelong hunter, who will protect our Second Amendment rights," Norris said in the video. "Mike Huckabee wants to put the IRS out of business. Mike's a principled, authentic conservative."
"My plan to secure the border, two words: Chuck Norris," Huckabee deadpanned.
"Chuck Norris doesn't endorse," Huckabee said. "He tells America how it's going to be."
Norris, an actor known for tough-guy roles including TV's "Walker, Texas Ranger" and columnist for the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com, endorsed Huckabee in October.

And finally

CNN reported that WWE wrestler Ric Flair, also known as The Nature Boy, is also on board with Huckabee and is co-hosting a campaign with the candidate at the South Carolina vs. Clemson football game this weekend in Columbia, S.C.

There are more.

Huckabee is the perfect front-person for the craziness of the religious right and "social conservatism."  He is polite, straight as an arrow, and articluate in a way that appeals to people who mistrust education and dislike what they percieve to be elitism.  There are a lot of Baptist preachers who purchase or "phone in" their sermons, but for those who take the task seriously, regardless of persepective, there is no better crucible in which to hone one's rhetorical skill than standing up in front of a congregation 2-3 times a week and earning your pay.  Huckabee has fine-tuned his rhetorical skills over a long period of time.

I think Huckabee has a good chance to get the Republican nomination.  This may be good news for Democrats, because I don't think he appeals well to the center in a national, general election.  At the same time, we need to be thinking about how to beat a candidate who does not have Giuliani's moral problems, Thompson's laziness, or Romney's flip-flopping.  We need to remember these endorsements when the Republicans start moving Huckabee to the center for the general election.  Huckabee will put on his "reasonable personna" and America will need to be reminded what lies behind all of that apparent reasonableness.more