Kathryn, I absolutely agree. As I keep trying to explain, the significance of the label ‘Christian Democrat’ is not theological (although the roots of that particular variety of conservatism do find their origins in a certain strand of Christian belief), but in the type of government to which it usually leads.

The importance of Huckabee is, I think, that he may be a sign that the GOP’s transformation into the American equivalent of a European Christian Democratic party is accelerating. Some (perhaps many) people around here disagree with that thesis, which is fine: let’s agree to disagree. If I am, however, correct in this diagnosis it is not, most categorically, the religious beliefs of any particular politician (which generally don’t worry me that much), that concern me, but where such parties stand on the relationship between the individual and the government, their notions of the nation state, their corporatism, their economic policy and so on. I think that you feel the same way.

What is so interesting about the current situation is the fact that (as Rod Dreher points out) the combination of populist-tinged big government with social conservatism may well prove to be the best vote winner that the GOP has going for it in the years ahead (even if Huckabee himself is a step too far). It’s all very well going on about being ‘socially liberal economically conservative’ but how big, these days, is the constituency that actually thinks that way?