Mike Huckabee, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, says that states shouldn’t be given the chance to determine their own abortion views.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee rejects letting states decide whether to allow abortions, claiming the right to life is a moral issue not subject to multiple interpretations.

“It’s the logic of the Civil War,” Huckabee said Sunday, comparing abortion rights to slavery. “If morality is the point here, and if it’s right or wrong, not just a political question, then you can’t have 50 different versions of what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“For those of us for whom this is a moral question, you can’t simply have 50 different versions of what’s right,” he said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

As much as I like Huckabee’s positions, I have to take issue with this. Government’s job is not to say what is right, but what is legal. Sometimes those two coincide, and sometimes they don’t.

I don’t believe that government should be the leading indicator of what’s right and wrong. It is very unfortunate that, for too many people, if it’s legal then it’s right. However, we can’t use that situation to then say that the government should pass laws against all that is immoral. This may sound funny to some, coming as it does from this evangelical Christian, but there are a couple of ideas at play here.

First is the idea that any set of rules made by men as to what is right and wrong is, by definition, going to be flawed. We can’t do it, and that’s taking on a job that God has exclusive rights to. Passing a low solely because it fits my moral code is, therefore, not a good idea. (Bear in mind that I’m emphasizing “solely”. We’ll come back to that.)

Second is the idea that my personal morality can inform what I want government to do. So based on my reading of the Bible, I may be against state-run gambling. My concern over taxing the foolish and government-sponsored co-dependence are moral stances, and they contribute to my opinion of laws regarding them. The Civil Rights laws of the 1960s were largely informed by a religious view of equality among people, equal in the sight of God. The laws were both morally right and a proper use of government in that they promoted liberty, equally, for all. For example, gambling promotes slavery to an addition.

So, while writing a pure moral code into a man-made document is doomed to fail, there is still a place for the Christian (and any religious person) in the creation of laws for the state or country. And while I appreciate Gov. Huckabee’s stance on the issue of abortion, I’m a little leery of him suggesting that the federal government should do it solely because it is right. That suggestion opens the door to abuses by more well-meaning politicians, and can result in less liberty as the government encroaches on the individual.

Now, having said all of that, I’m going to spin you in further circles and say that I do agree that the matter of abortion should be decided at the federal level. The reason is that protecting the right to life is a primary function of government, and without the right to life, no other rights can be enjoyed. Further, the Roe v Wade decision did nothing but muddy the waters as to what the Constitution really says about privacy. So yes, I think it should be overturned, and indeed I think abortion, as a matter of liberty, should be a matter of federal legislation.

But to do it because it is “right”, from a political standpoint, invites abuse. Government has a specific purpose and it should be used accordingly.

[tags]Mike Huckabee,abortion,gambling,church and state,morality,liberty[/tags]

Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Guliani for the Republican presidential nominee, and other religious folks say they’d stay home. What do you say? Please vote in the poll at the right and let us know.

Here’s an unexpected presidential endorsement.

Pat Robertson, one of the most influential figures in the social conservative movement, announced his support for Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid this morning at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Pat Robertson

Robertson’s support was coveted by several of the leading Republican candidates and provides Giuliani with a major boost as the former New York City mayor seeks to convince social conservatives that, despite his positions on abortion and gay rights, he is an acceptable choice as the GOP nominee.

This endorsement serves a few purposes. First, it shows (yet again, for those who weren’t paying attention) that The Religious Right(tm) isn’t as monolithic as the media makes it out to be. There were those who said they’d stay home if Guliani was nominated, but this move by Robertson shows that it’s not quite the herd it’s been made out to be. Although, if you read the comments attached to the article, you’ll find a boatload of those for whom this realization has flown over their heads.

Secondly, as Chris Cillizza notes in the article, this will have a calming effect in the SoCon arena and among the buzz brokers who were predicting turmoil in the Republican ranks. It shows that, even if Guiliani is the nominee, his chances in the general election will not be hampered by political purists.

Robertson has indeed done his cause a favor by breaking yet another stereotype of the Christian Right. Whether or not everyone agrees with his choice for endorsement is beside the point. And then, when you think about it, it is the point.

[tags]Pat Robertson,Rudy Guliani,Republican,Religious Right,Christian Right[/tags]

Republicans in California are trying to change the way electoral votes from California are distributed.

Veteran GOP consultants said Monday that they were relaunching a drive to change the way California allocates its electoral college votes, aimed at helping the 2008 Republican presidential nominee capture the White House.

Political strategist David Gilliard said he was taking over the ballot initiative campaign, along with strategist Ed Rollins and fundraiser Anne Dunsmore. Consultant Mike Arno will oversee the signature-gathering effort.

“Our budget is going to be whatever it takes to make the June ballot,” said Gilliard, who played a key role in getting the recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis onto the 2003 ballot.

The proposed initiative would change California’s method of allocating its 55 electoral votes from a winner-take-all basis, which favors Democrats, to a congressional district-based approach. Republicans hold 19 congressional seats, so presumably the GOP nominee could win a similar number of electoral votes.

Amazingly enough, Markos Moulitsas, the Daily Kos himself, is thrilled with this development.

The move is brilliant. For one, every state should allocate EVs in this manner. Maine and Nebraska already have some variation of proportionate EV allocation, and it would force the parties and candidates to pay attention to swing regions unlucky enough to not reside in a swing state. There are more than 18 states in the union, but you wouldn’t know it from the way this campaign will be waged.

Oh, sorry. Got my links mixed up. This is his reaction to when Colorado was going to change its electoral vote distribution. If you click here, you’ll see his reaction to the California effort, which he considers election stealing, compares to a “bad horror movie”, and calls it an attempt to “game the system”.

What’s the difference? Well, if you know your netroots, you won’t be surprised. For the Colorado effort, this would benefit Democrats.

But on a more immediate tactical level, this initiative will force Republicans to spend a great deal of money in Colorado when they hoped to completely ignore the state and take its nine EVs for granted. Despite all the talk of Colorado being in play this year, Kerry still has a ways to go before he pulls the state in play.

But the effort in California could give more votes to the Republican nominee. True to form, what Kos thinks is good or evil is entirely, exclusively a case of how its politics fall. He was for electoral vote reallocation before he was against it.

For the record, I was against the Colorado effort, and I’m against this one. Click here for why, but it boils down to the idea that the Electoral College favors broad support over the most support in close races. Whether or not you agree with this is one thing, but for one’s support for the system to be utterly devoid of an understanding of its principles is partisanship at its blindest.

[tags]California,Colorado,electoral votes,Electoral College,David Gilliard,Ed Rollins,Anne Dunsmore,Mike Arno,Markos Moulitsas,Daily Kos[/tags]

As The Captain notes, Louisiana’s heavily Democratic voters have elected a Republican as governor; Bobby Jindal. Even an attempted smear by Democrats using religion, the voters chose the man who promised to root out the corruption. The Katrina disaster may not have been as bad as it was if the state government had spent levy money on, y’know, the levies. And the attitude of “the buck doesn’t even pause here on the way to Washington”, while initially successful in getting people mad at President Bush, has been shown over time for the keister-covering that it was.

If Jindal can deliver, Republicans could capitalize on that for a long time to come. This can only be a good thing for Louisiana, which was suffering long before Katrina.

[tags]Louisiana,Bobby Jindal,Katrina[/tags]