Planet Huckabee

It’s a slippery slope. First, you change the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Then, before you know it, you’re seeing marriages between “a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal”. Welcome to Planet Huckabee, the perfect antidote to Eskom-induced depression, where one does not even need to consider Mondli Makhanya’s reference to saving electricity by switching off the light at the end of the tunnel.

Instead, one wonders what happened to the tunnel at all. With much focus in South Africa on the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic party nomination, we seem to have forgotten about the crazies among the GOP candidates who seem intent on turning the United States into a slicker, somewhat preppy version of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Consider Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee. During his unsuccessful bid to represent Arkansas in the US Senate in 1992, he called for the isolation of people living with Aids. He has subsequently refused to retract a statement that called for “steps … [to] be taken to ‘isolate the carriers of this plague’”.

To his credit, Pastor Mike is reported to have said that he “probably would not make the same statement today because of what is known about HIV”.

“I had simply made the point — and I still believe this today — that in the late Eighties and early Nineties, when we didn’t know as much as we do now about Aids, we were acting more out of political correctness than we were about the normal public health protocols that we would have acted,” he said,

But what is known about HIV — that it is not transmitted by casual contact — was first known as far back as 1985. At least that’s the conclusion then reached by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. On Planet Huckabee, however, “there were other concerns being voiced by public health officials”.

Completing his final act of linguistic gymnastics, Huckabee rejected that he had been calling for people with HIV to be quarantined. Lucky he made that treble backflip, or I might have mistaken him for someone sympathetic to the Cuban response to Aids. For the record, the honourable candidate is “committed to being a staunch ally in the cause of a free and democratic Cuba”, believing that his country “must continue to lead the world in condemning the human rights abuses inflicted on the Cuban people”.

Would those abuses, by any chance, have anything to do with Aids or fags? Perhaps both? And Governor, when you call for the “freeing of all political prisoners”, does that extend to those at Guantánamo Bay?

Huckabee seems unlikely to secure his party’s nomination. Instead, that “honour” should go to one of three other conservative white men — Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani or John McCain — all of whom support strong Second Amendment rights (to bear arms). As much as this pains me, I have to admit that it’s a far worse choice than that which confronted delegates in Polokwane.

Romney, despite having been governor of the only US state to recognise same-sex marriage, makes much of his attempts to fight for what he terms “traditional marriage”. And in his view, there is no constitutional right to make choices regarding reproduction. Instead, states should decide for and on behalf of women. If he were to decide, abortion would only be permitted following incest or rape, or to save the life of the mother.

Giuliani, with much experience of marriage (he’s had a few himself), shares Romney’s views. Like his colleagues, he also believes in appointing “strict constructionist judges” — those who will adjudicate cases on the basis of what the founding fathers (who believed in slavery) would have intended. On reproductive choice, however, he has restricted his support to parental notification and the ban on so-called “partial birth” abortion.

McCain, possibly the most electable of the bunch, has similar views on marriage and strict constructionism. To his credit, he does not support amendments to the Constitution to achieve his goals. Instead, he supports stronger states’ rights. Even on abortion, his conservatism is somewhat cloaked in feel-good liberalism. But at his core, he’s a Republican — and the one who appears most likely to give either Barack or Hillary a decent run for their money.

McCain’s tempered conservatism, all wrapped up in folksy charm and war-hero bravado, is dangerous. So too is Romney’s focus on the economy and his business acumen, designed to appeal to fiscal conservatives who don’t share his views on certain human rights issues. And what more can one say about Giuliani other than to remember the inevitable outcome of his war on crime in New York City — the death of Amadou Diallo?

My vote, for what it counts, would go to the craziest among the pale males. Not for me the Tony “I deliberately understated the importance of faith in my life” Blair type of politician; I prefer the Mike “My faith doesn’t influence my decisions, it drives them” Huckabee style of doing business. It’s truly crazy, but it’s nevertheless truthful. And it’s unlikely to result in a Republican win in November.