So WordPress has this feature when you hover over a link it gives you related searches suggestions.

I went to my blog this morning to get a link to email to my friend. The related searches WordPress offered read like a surrealist poem. Here it is in a couple different versions. A prize goes to the person with the best theory about why a link about John McCain and evangelical politics was related to these items:

Rental car,
Foucault,
Sadomasochism,
Medicaid,
Wheat allergy.

Wheat Allergy,
Medicaid,
Sadomasochism,
Family Radio,
Rental Car.

Sadomasochism,
Rental Car,
Medicaid,
Wheat Allergy,
Foucault.

This complete story appears at Huffington Post.

As South Carolina Republicans headed to the polls Saturday, an all too-simple storyline emerged in the press. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who won the Iowa caucus, would have the evangelical vote, while Arizona Senator John McCain, a Vietnam War hero, would win defense conservatives. “It’s the Christian soldiers vs. the retired soldiers,” one observer summed up for the Wall Street Journal.

But McCain captured a quarter of evangelical voters when he won yesterday’s GOP primary according to exit polls, while Huckabee won only 40%. A recent conversation with Rich Cizik, who heads up governmental affairs for the 30-million member National Association of Evangelicals, reveals that Christian voters are a more complicated voting block than the media seems to realize. Cizik speaks unhappily about the GOP under the Bush administration. “This has been an unholy alliance in which the evangelicals have given everything and gotten nothing in return.” But, he says, “It’s quite obvious that the next Republican in the White House will likely be someone with a very different attitude… John McCain or Mike Huckabee, at least in the case of those two, would be much more sympathetic.” (Cizik was speaking for himself, not for the NAE, which does not endorse candidates.)

The rest of this post can be read at Huffington Post.

Ok, that might be an overstatement. But at least GOP voters aren’t punishing candidates who have supported legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions. Interestingly, the only two Republican presidential candidates who have endorsed cap-and-trade legislation to control global warming—Mike Huckabee and John McCain—are the victors in the two most important early nominating contests, Iowa and New Hampshire.

It’s unlikely that they won much support for these positions—the environment is not high on the list of conservative voters. But they were not penalized for their positions, which suggests building consensus for global warming legislation will be easier than ever before no matter who wins the White House in November.

Spinning is sometimes surreal. As Hillary Clinton eeked out a narrow victory over Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primary last night, her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, told a TV reporter that her watery-eyed profession of love-of-country explained her revived campaign.

A moment of supposed emotional authenticity had officially become a talking point. It became part of Clinton’s arsenal in the fight for voters waged in a media battleground.

Clinton’s uncharacteristically emotional display came in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on Monday when explaining how she copes with the strain of the campaign. “Some people think elections are a game and they think it’s like who’s up or who’s down,” her voice reportedly cracking as her eyes welled up. “It’s about our country. It’s about our kids; futures. And it’s really about all of us together.”

Clinton herself deployed that weapon in a carefully worded sentence in her victory speech. “Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice.”

Portrayed in the media as an Ice Queen, Clinton’s displays of emotion have been under the microscope for years. There was a particularly ridiculous week this summer when her frequent laughter was taken as a displayed of a contrived effort to be more likeable. (As best as I can tell, the mainstream media picked up on her laughter after Jon Stewart satirized it on the Daily Show. Frank Rich capped an inane week of commentary on the subject in the following Sunday’s column.)

Her emotional Portsmouth appearance may very well have been effective in puncturing her cool image and rallying last-minute support. But I find pundits’ readiness to buy this narrative just a silly as their mocking of her laughter. And the campaign’s quick transformation of a supposedly genuine moment into a talking point makes it hard to buy Clinton’s claim that she “found her voice” in New Hampshire. She may have remade her image in New Hampshire, but hasn’t she been at this far too long for her to have a sudden personal transformation at the eleventh hour?

I spent this morning in an Orlando megachurch listening to a preacher talk about heaven on earth.  As if someone felt I should be shown the alternative, I am spending the evening in the Orlando airport. If there is a place more like hell on earth, I’m having a hard time imagining it.

The terminal where I am waiting is like an overcrowded bus station. Since Orlando is home to Disneyland, it seems roughly half the people waiting for their delayed flights are under the age of 12. I usually don’t mind traveling with children, but being stuck in a waiting area with what amounts to 18 elementary school field trips so close to a child’s bed time is next to unbearable. There are children wrestling, dancing, jumping on and off the rows of torn  vinyl chairs, and, above all, whining in about 20 different languages. It is a small world, after all.

Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama have a lot in common. Of course, the winners of the respective Republican and Democratic Iowa caucuses Thursday couldn’t be more different on matters of policy. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is a hard-core social conservative who is supportive of the war effort and has embraced a hard line on illegal immigration. Illinois Senator Barack Obama is pro-choice, an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, and supports a federal role in providing health insurance anathema to a conservative like Huckabee.

Yet the both represent the same brand of politics—the politics of authenticity. To their supporters, each is viewed as speaking from the heart about the things they truly care about. Though both talk of seeking common ground and overcoming division, both speak about upholding values and causes with a high-minded idealism seldom heard in today’s debate. They promise a vision that will win converts rather than strategies that will thwart opponents.

They offer more than rhetoric for voters weary of the Bush era’s divisiveness. They promise that politics is still about something more meaningful than money and power games (to borrow a phrase from one of the 20th century’s greatest idealist politicians, late Senator Paul Wellstone). Politics, they assert, is not a dirty enterprise for a craven few, but a noble endeavor for making a better world.

On both the Republican and Democratic sides, voters were offered a choice between candidates with carefully crafted images and establishment credentials—Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Hillary Clinton—and newcomers to the national scene. When voters told pollsters they thought the establishment candidate was more “electable,” they may have meant that they were the least objectionable to undecided voters, or that they were such disciplined politicians that they were likely to compensate for their weaknesses by technical competence. But on some level, when a primary voter says a candidate is “more electable” in a general election, they are signaling that the candidate doesn’t represent their views as well as they like. And they may harbor suspicions that the candidate has tempered his or her own views in an effort to alienate voters on the other side.

So perhaps Huckabee and Obama’s unanticipated victories by wide margins—both beat their nearest rival by more than 8 points—shouldn’t have taken observers by such surprise. I made my own predictions based on the belief that organization would be decisive in the caucuses complicated and tedious voting system. But passion counts for a lot. To borrow a phrase from a less-idealistic context (Democrats explaining why they acceded to Chief Justice Roberts appointment), voters chose to vote their hopes rather than their fears. They chose the candidate who represented the things they still wanted politics to be about rather than the one they were least frightened would screw up.

Now, I’m not so naïve to believe that Huckabee or Obama’s style is uncontrived. As I wrote recently in the Huffington Post, Huckabee’s congenial mask is belied by his long track record of a culture warrior’s harsh rhetoric. Obama, too, is a polished campaigner who has given much thought to how he presents himself. My point is not that these politicians are more authentic than their rivals, but rather that voters perceive them to be so. But that still counts for something—voters are selecting a brand of politics that prizes high-minded values.

Neither candidate is perfect, and I confess I find some of their policies downright scary. But if Iowans have not chosen ideal presidents, I’m heartened that they’ve chosen an idealistic politics. And their enthusiasm—especially on the Democratic side, which had whopping turnout—holds out hope for a rejuvenation of grassroots political engagement.

Since I have a blog, here’s the obligatory prognostication of what’s going to happen after the Iowegians make their way to various churches, schools, and living rooms to caucus for the presidential nominees:

Democratic:

1. John Edwards, winning by at least 3 points above #2.
2. Barack Obama, winning by less than 2 points above #3.
3. Hillary Clinton, winning by at least 10 points above #4, if anyone gets enough votes to be fourth.
4. Bill Richardson.

Republican:

1. Mitt Romney, winning by at least 4 points above #2.
2. Mike Huckabee, winning by at least 7 points ahead of #3.
3. Essentially a three way tie between McCain, Thompson, and Giuliani.
4. Ron Paul will bring up the rear.

Here’s the reasoning:

Edwards has the most supporters who have caucused before, and he’s maintained an organization in the state since coming in second there in 2004. With the race this close, turnout will be decisive.

Obama will come in second because he’s the most likely second choice of the big-three contenders. I’m betting that people are either for Hillary or against her–she’s a less-likely second choice.

On the Republican side, Romney’s got an organization Huckabee can’t match (when i was in the state two weeks ago, I was told Huckabee had 18 people on staff in the state compared to Chris Dodd’s 60+, though that was never confirmed), and the battery of negative ads that have crushed Huckabee’s lead means that could be decisive.

This complete story appears at Huffington Post.

The only policy issue Mike Huckabee singles out on a page devoted to “Faith and Politics” isn’t abortion or marriage. “My faith doesn’t influence my decisions, it drives them,” writes the GOP presidential hopeful. “For example, when it comes to the environment, I believe in being a good steward of the earth.”

But the prominence given to the environment on this webpage is unmatched in Iowa. He does not even mention the issue in his stump speech, and he is seldom asked about it by the largely conservative audiences that turn out to appraise whether he deserves their support in the state’s January 3rd caucus. This is undoubtedly a prudent judgment of the concerns of the voters he is courting. He is unlikely to win points for having bucked conservative orthodoxy with his endorsement of a cap-and-trade system to control carbon emissions. But he also likely avoids talking about the environment because there is deep division within the evangelical community that has fueled his rise to the front of the GOP pack.

“I’ve heard reporters talking about global warming as an evangelical issue, and that’s just poppycock,” said Iowa Christian Alliance President Steve Scheffler, reached by phone earlier this month.

Click here to read the rest of this story at Huffington Post.

This complete story appears at the Huffington Post.

Des Moines – Mike Huckabee began a bold denunciation of gay marriage in Ames, Iowa, Wednesday night, but quickly checked himself with stuttering caveats:

“We have to also realize that the strength of our nation really does come down to our families, and that’s why, without apology — I’m, I’m not mad at anybody and I’m, I’m not against anybody — but folks, we have an obligation to preserve the integrity of, of what family, what marriage means. Again, not to, not to try to put others down, but to lift that institution up.”

The former Arkansas governor returned to Iowa this week as the new frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination. He has been selling himself as a kinder-and-gentler conservative, one who’s “just not angry about it.” How different is the aw-shucks Huck who spoke in this Iowa college town than the culture warrior who wrote in 1998: “It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations — from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.” This quote turned up by David Korn at Mother Jones is one of the many Ghosts of an Angry Huckabee Past that haunted him the week before Christmas.

One of Huckabee’s main challenges during the final stretch to the Iowa caucuses is preserving his sunny image under intensifying scrutiny.

Click here to read the rest of this story at Huffington Post.

Mike Huckabee, and ordained Southern Baptist minister who is now the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, has raised concerns about blurring the separation of church and state. In an apparent response to address these concerns, the Huckabee campaign has added new text to a webpage devoted to “Faith and Politics.” It begins with new language that states that “The First Ammendment requires that expressions of faith be neither prohibited nor preferred,” along with a checklist of other  principles meant to encapsulate the preacher-politicians beliefs. The page used to begin at paragraph 2, which begins “Faith is my life–it defines me.”