Mike Huckabee explains why he should have gotten the party nod in ‘08 instead of being tossed aside by his own kind “because they did not believe he could win the general election”:
“Christians should never involve themselves in politics based on the process,” he said. “It ought to be the principles, and what this last election revealed was that there were many people who had fallen into the trap of worshipping at the altar of process instead of adhering to the idea of godly principles.”
“What I hope is that Southern Baptists in particular and evangelicals in general will recognize that if they are not the voice for life and traditional marriage, then don’t expect the secularists to take up the cause,” Huckabee said. “If we don’t adhere to what we believe to be our biblical and eternal principles, then we have no reason to complain when we lose those principles in the public marketplace.”
I’m afraid I know exactly what this excerpt means, although I hope not: “Christians should never involve themselves in politics based on the process. It ought to be the principles.”
I could be wrong (only the Huckster and his campaign manager know for sure), but I’m almost certain that all he meant was voters shouldn’t triangulate before pulling the lever. If that’s what he meant, I’d be inclined to agree with him.
If he meant lowercase-p “process,” as in, “the horse race,” sure, I guess. (I can’t say that I’m Huckabee’s biggest fan, although he doesn’t make my skin crawl, either.)
If he meant capital-P “Process,” as in, “the civic process,” he needs to go to work flipping burgers in a Wendy’s somewhere and let the grown-ups talk.