David Corn

Mike Huckabee is a threat. Not just to Mitt Romney, but to both the leaders of the Republican Party and the leaders of the Christian Right.

For years, the Republican Party has played the Christian card, pushing "family values" and decrying abortion and (more recently) gay marriage and, in return, collecting the votes of evangelicals across the country (including key presidential swing states). But if Huckabee wins Iowa and continues to do well in subsequent states, how will the GOP elite react to the possibility of this former Baptist minister nabbing the nomination? My hunch: with panic. While Huckabee can pull social conservatives, he's not what the party needs to attract independents and those suburban GOPers who are not social conservatives. Consequently, there may well develop a campaign--call it a crusade?--to stop Huckabee. And if such an effort emerges, how will the social conservative grassroots of the GOP will take it? Another hunch: not kindly. They've been there for the party, and if they see their party not standing by one of their own, there will be resentment, anger, and alienation--hell to pay?--which could last until November and beyond.

It's not hard to envision a stop-Huck campaign actually deepening his support, for it would play into the familiar narrative of a Christian being persecuted by the powerful. Imagine Huckabee turned into a martyr. Many Huckabee supporters might see how the GOP leaders respond to his success as a litmus test. And that's not a test Republican leaders are likely to pass.

The same goes for the leaders of the Religious Right. How can Pat Robertson face his flock and justify choosing Rudy Giuliani over one of their own? Why won't James Dobson bless Huckabee's bid? Why does the National Right To Life Committee side with a fellow who once advised an abortion rights group instead of supporting an antiabortion champion? Why do some evangelicals ride with a Mormon who has flip-flopped on abortion and gay rights? Have they, Huckabee will ask, succumbed to the corruptions of power? Yes, many of his supporters will say. And, of course, they're right.

There are two possible splits in the works: one separating social conservative votes from the GOP and the other dividing them from the top of the Religious Right infrastructure. So should the Democrats be cheering on the former Arkansas governor and proclaiming, Thank God for Huckabee? Perhaps. But they ought to be careful what they wish for, for maybe Huckabee does, as he believes, have God on his side.