Guest Commentary:The Only 'Catholic' On the Ballot: Mike Huckabee?

By Robert Stackpole, STD
1/29/2008
Catholic Online

Gov. Mike Huckabee is the only candidate running for the presidency who has fully, clearly and consistently been Pro-Life and Pro-Family throughout his public career.

...Governor Huckabee proposes not just tax credits, but in fact the complete elimination of personal and corporate income taxes, and their replacement with a national sales tax, coupled with a “prebate” for basic human needs. This removal of the taxation obstacles to wealth accumulation and savings by the working poor could go a long way to finally restoring “the American Dream” to many families now stuck in low-wage employment.

The Bishop’s document calls for fairness and compassion toward immigrants, “both documented and undocumented…including immigrant children” (section 83). Governor Huckabee pushed for his state to allow children of illegal immigrants access to in-state tuition at Arkansas colleges, and in the Republican You-Tube debate this fall, in response to Gov. Romney’s hard-line stance on the issue, Huckabee refused to pander to anti-immigrant fever:

“In all due respect,” he said, “ we are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did.”

...What united Americans from the beginning, and is clearly expressed in the Declaration of Independence, is what Catholic scholar Michael Novak has called a common commitment to a basic Judeo-Christian “metaphysic”: belief in one, transcendent, Creator God who has created all people in his image, and therefore of equal value and with inalienable rights.

...The Huckabee campaign marks something of a welcome revival (excuse the pun) of this Evangelical heritage, and one that promises to lead the Evangelical movement into closer harmony with the social teachings of the Catholic Church.

When Robertson endorsed the pseudo-Catholic Rudy Guiliani for president, and thereby sacrificed vital Evangelical social principles on the altar of “electability” and “national security,” that proved to be “the last straw” for many younger Evangelicals, who jumped on the Huckabee bandwagon as a result.

The time has come for Catholics to find a spot on that bandwagon too, for in this exciting, and at times confusing election year, ironically, the best Catholic running for the highest office in the land seems to be the best Evangelical too.