Not Welcome at This Party

Novakula's column this morning is a classic--revealing the deepest working of the GOP Establishment "mind." In going after "False Conservative" Mike Huckabee--yes, you read that right--he lets this slip:

Now that he has pulled even with Mitt Romney for the Iowa caucuses and might make more progress, the beleaguered Republican Party has a frightening problem.

The rise of evangelical Christians as the force that blasted the GOP out of minority status during the past generation always contained an inherent danger: What if these new Republican acolytes supported not merely a conventional conservative but one of their own? That has happened with Huckabee, a former Baptist minister educated at Ouachita Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The danger is a serious contender for the nomination who passes the litmus test of social conservatives on abortion, gay marriage and gun control but is far removed from the conservative-libertarian model of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

OMG. There it is, Christian evangelicals. The GOP Establishment will gladly accept your votes, and they might tolerate your "litmus tests," but don't dare think that the GOP is your party. It's not. It belongs to "the conservatve-libertarian model" of Goldwater and Reagan. But, one should quickly add, Ron Paul--the actual libertarian--you're not welcome at this party, either.

For the longest time, I didn't believe that the GOP Establishment would actually try to foist Rudy on the Christian evangelicals. But it looks like they're actually going to. And then what happens? Things could get interesting.