Nuke's

From the Associated Press:

On the Republican side, Mormons comprised a quarter of those attending Nevada’s GOP caucuses, and more than nine in 10 were voting for Romney. Romney is a Mormon, and his religion has been cited as a problem by some Republican voters.

About half of Romney’s overall vote in Nevada came from Mormons.

This would seem to be a clear-cut case of “identity politics.” Fine with me. I don’t give a hoot why a voter chooses to vote for a particular candidate. It isn’t any of my business. It isn’t anybody else’s business either.

Mike Huckabee has been criticized and reviled by a large number of conservative pundits and molders of conservative opinion for “identity politics.”

NRO’s Kathryn Lopez’s , in a post-Iowa Caucus piece captures the truly dramatic rhetoric from Michigan congressman Pete Hoekstra, who says he is “scared.” According to the Congressman, the identity politics of the Huckabee campaign, and the implied bigotry of Christians who will not support a Mormon candidate causes divisiveness, is a threat to world peace, apple pie, and the Rule of Law.

Republicans “need to stick up for our principles,” Hoekstra told National Review Online on Monday afternoon. We’re about “freedom and opportunity” — we don’t exclude people based on such things as race or gender, class or religion. But Hoekstra sees the Huckabee campaign as a divisive vessel of religious and class warfare.

No doubt Hoekstra, Lopez, Lowry, et al, have a perfectly reasonable explanation for the fact that 9 out of 10 Mormon voters in Nevada supported the Mormon candidate. And, we can be absolutely sure that it has “nothing at all to do with religion.”

After hearing CAIR deliver that same line for the last 6+ years, hearing NRO use jihadist rhetoric will be strange, to say the least.

But with NRO’s implicit support of Congressman Hoekstra for using Al Sharpton’s rhetoric, then I guess we really shouldn’t be too surprised.

Update: (1/21)
Chas Johnson calls Huck a Leftist.

This time last year, there was a lot of buzz over at his blog as to whether or not the social conservatives would support Rudy if he won the nomination. I thought so, at that time. Seeing this come from the self-proclaimed leader of the counter-jihad, I am now not so sure.

You don’t win support by trying to marginalize potential allies. But, since Rudy has been invisible in the Republican race up to this point, I suppose Johnson is just releasing some pent-up energy, and the same can probably be said of Tammy Bruce’s statement that she would vote for the donk candidate rather than vote for Huck.

So, Johnson and Bruce join the NRO-WSJ chorus, accusing Huck of being unable to expand his base. The unspoken irony is that none of the leading candidates have been able to do so.

Filed under: Election 2008, News and politics | Tagged: Al Sharpton, CAIR, Charles Johnson, Kathryn Lopez, LGF, Michigan, mike huckabee, mitt romney, Mormon, National Review Online, Nevada, NRO, Peter Hoekstra, Rich Lowry, Tammy Bruce | 14 Comments »