More on the GOP candidates

Matt Taibbi has a lively but fairly stupid piece about Mike Huckabee. He thinks Huckabee's quite electable; his social conservatism and economic populism make him appealing in much the same way as the blue dog Democrats who got elected last year, an apt comparison to...a Republican primary situation... Anyway, for Taibbi, the downside of Huckabee is not electability or the difficulty in acquiring widespread conservative support. Instead, it's the fact that he's a conservative evangelical, and thus crazy.

Also, a very telling post over at World on the Web: Clint Rainey raises the much-rehearsed question as to "the merits of any GOP candidate [on abortion], since three of the top four have previously or still do support abortion." Three of the top four? Any outside observer would immediately ask, "well...what about the fourth?" To which there's no very satisfying answer: just "he once said some mean things about some really extreme, mean people who don't really represent most evangelicals anymore; and he backed a law that made it harder for interest groups--including but by no means limited to the anti-abortion lobby and its allies--to bully lawmakers with money."

The post ends with this: "The only candidate who’s been pro-life his entire 25 years in politics? John McCain." But just this--no explanation/exploration of why evangelicals refuse, based largely on flimsy grudges, to give Sen. McCain the time of day.