Populism and Evangelicalism: A Winning Combination?

Will Huckabee's candidacy create a new majority coalition in 2008?

One of the phenomena hardest for progressives to comprehend is the alliance between working- and lower middle-class social conservatives and the economic/foreign policy conservatives who have made the GOP what Mike Huckabee has called "a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street."

Aside from sharing the word conservative as their last name, these two groups have very little in common.

Polls show, in fact, as common sense suggests, that a majority of evangelicals do not embrace the Republican pro-Capitalist agenda. According to a survey last year by the Pew Research Center, for example, more than two thirds of social conservatives agree that big corporations make too much money; almost three quarters -- 72% -- say too much power is concentrated in the hands of too few large companies; 78% want to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25; and 59% support having the government guarantee health care for all citizens.

No wonder the corporatist power brokers are freaked out by Huckabee's neo-populism. A Huckabee win could signal that the unholy alliance between the evangelicals and Wall Street is over.

It is likely that it is Huckabee's populist rhetoric, not his opposition to gay marriage and abortion, that is exciting his followers (in fact, as he has ratcheted up the red meat Christian rhetoric since Iowa his support has appeared to recede somewhat) . After all, his was not the only hand that was raised when the Republican presidential wannabes were asked who believed the biblical account of creation to be literally true, and with the exception of John McCain, the rest of the candidates have exceeded him in their zeal to take reactionary cultural, economic and political positions. But, tellingly, it is Huckabee who emerged from the pack.

Much has been made of McCain's narrow win in South Carolina, but it's worth noting that, although the Arizona senator did slightly better, both candidates got about one third of the vote, even though Huckabee was vastly outspent, faced a hostile conservative press, had Fred Thompson flanking him on the right, and had to rely on a relatively amateurish campaign staff. The campaign is far from over and, and despite corporate media animus toward him, Huckabee can be expected to do well. Even if McCain or Mitt Romney eventually prevails for the top job, it will be surprising if the former governor and televangelist is not on the ballot in November.

Although the economic conservatives regard him as practically a New Dealer, it goes without saying that not all of Huckabee's economic views are progressive. He supports, for example, a regressive consumption tax -- he gives it the Orwellian name FairTax -- that would pick the pockets of the low- and middle-income voters he is courting. Still, Huckabee is running against the standard-issue conservative trickle-down economic scripture, arguing that conservatives need to "quit being a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street, or else we're not going to win another election for a generation." He favors increasing the minimum wage and wants to provide health insurance to more children, positions that put him at odds with traditional economic conservatives.

And he is equally in conflict with many established religious leaders allied with the GOP. The editor of the National Review, who thinks Huckabee is a closet "liberal," is terrified of the governor because "he takes the Sermon on the Mount seriously," and indeed, this does seem to strike at the heart of his differences with the religious bosses who oppose him. Pat Robertson, for example, Rev. Ike-like, finds it convenient to quote Matthew ("To everyone who has shall more be given") rather than Luke ("From everyone who has been given much, much will be required"); the late Jerry Falwell found evidence in the Old Testament that capitalism is "part of God's plan for His people;" and Jim Wallis tasked Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, for placing Republican ideology ahead of biblical principles of justice.

Yet evangelical leaders such as these, and not just the dead ones, no longer command the following they once did. More importantly, they never accurately reflected the economic views of most evangelicals, who are not worshippers at the altar of economic conservatism but rather hold a wide range of views on economic issues roughly similar to other Americans. Among economically progressive evangelicals, Jim Wallis is hardly a lone voice. And Huckabee, more in tune with evangelicals than other, more ideologically righteous economic conservatives, doesn't make them choose between their social and their economic beliefs.

This is bad news for progressive Democrats. With their party apparently headed toward nominating one of the two candidates from Wall Street (or, in a real nightmare, having them both on the same ticket), the potential to elect a progressive congress next fall could be seriously compromised if Huckabee's populist brand of compassionate conservatism catches on. There will be little incentive for alienated Democrats who have been voting Republican for decades -- and in even larger numbers not voting at all -- to turn out and pull the lever for progressive Democratic congressional candidates if, once in office, those legislators will be, as they were during the Clinton years, triangulated into impotence by the leader of their own party.