Mike Huckabee

WASHINGTON - In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Or not. And so the debate on origins continues. This spring, west of Cincinnati, a $27 million Creation Museum opened its doors, complete with a display showing dinosaurs entering Noah's Ark. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is pressed repeatedly on his views of evolutionary biology, rather than health care policy or Iran. According to the Pew Research Center, about 70 percent of evangelicals believe that living things have always existed in their current form.

"Don't stop thinking about tomorrow. " -Fleetwood Mac "Don't Stop" was the theme song of former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton when he ran for president. Now another Arkansas governor is running for president, Republican Mike Huckabee. Huckabee and Clinton have different ideologies, but thinking about tomorrow is their common message. President Clinton, Gov. Huckabee and myself have all fought obesity. Clinton solved his weight problem after emergency bypass heart surgery.

WASHINGTON - It's not easy being a politician from a minority faith, especially when it comes to explaining your own traditions - sometimes even to yourself. Al Smith, the first Catholic to be nominated for president by a major party, found his faith under vicious attack in the 1928 campaign. Called upon to answer for the content of various papal encyclicals - documents issued by the pope in Rome - the New York Democrat turned to his aides in frustration one day with a plea: "Will someone tell me what the hell a papal encyclical is?"

WASHINGTON - Let's say it unequivocally: Mitt Romney's Mormon faith should not be an issue in this presidential campaign. Period. And then let us explore why the Mormon "issue" may be unavoidable - and what Romney and the rest of us should do about it. Romney's biggest problem is that he is running in a Republican Party that has been saturated by religion in recent years. Other than Sunday's debate on Fox News, the biggest GOP event during the weekend was the straw poll at the Values Voter Summit sponsored by the Family Research Council.

WASHINGTON - When Democratic presidential candidates get together, they argue about who has the best health care plan. When Republicans have a big discussion, it's about torture and who'll use it when. OK, OK, Republicans had their chat about torture in one debate in response to a hypothetical question. Still, the contrast points to one of the strangest qualities of the 2008 presidential campaign: Our two political parties and their candidates are living in parallel universes. It is as if they were running for president in two separate countries.

In the recent Republican debate on economic policy, the candidates collectively set out to re-establish themselves as the "daddy party. " Americans "live beyond our means" through "outrageous, wasteful spending" and "waste and pork-barrel spending," "spending the money of future generations" while we are "going broke" and "bankrupting the next generation" with our "spending out of control. " All of us, apparently, have come in past curfew, bleary with binge profligacy, and need to be grounded - not just the keys of the car taken away, but the tires flattened.

WASHINGTON - The rise of Mike Huckabee has put the fear of God into the Republican establishment. Its alarm has nothing to do with the Almighty. The Huckabee surge represents a break with what has been standard operating procedure within the GOP for more than a generation. Huckabee's evangelical Christian army in Iowa ignored the importuning of entrenched leaders of the religious right and decided to go with one of their own. Huckabee himself preaches a gospel of populism that rejects conservative orthodoxy on trade, the value of government and the beneficence of Wall Street.

WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani did a fine job of achieving their objectives in last Wednesday's Republican presidential debate: Each thoroughly discredited the other. They also disgraced themselves as they pandered relentlessly to the growing anti-immigrant feeling in their party. Mike Huckabee and John McCain were the only candidates willing to suggest what now seems unmentionable: Immigrants, even those here illegally, are human beings and shouldn't be used as political playthings.

Like it or not, religion matters in presidential politics. But rarely in our history has it mattered so much as it does in the 2008 campaign. Officially, of course, "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States" - as set forth in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. Unofficially, however, voters are free to administer their own religious tests - and that's exactly what many are doing in this election. Mitt Romney tried to avoid "the speech" - but he was finally compelled to address the Mormon question earlier this year.

WASHINGTON - The attacks of movement conservatives - particularly the talk radio and blogging crowd - on John McCain have reached a shrill, off-key crescendo. McCain is not only "dangerous" and "stupid," he has "contempt for his fellow humans. " His opponents will refuse to vote in the general election, or even will campaign for Hillary Clinton. McCain is partly responsible for this state of affairs. Over the years, he has enjoyed poking angry bears with short sticks - flirting with conversion to the Democratic Party and lashing out at Christian conservatives as "agents of intolerance.