Safe Online File Sharing & Storage. Store/Share/Access For Only $7.95/m (Not Yet an eBay User? Register Now -- It's Easy and FREE!)

Religion enters the political mix as GOP candidates maneuver in South Carolina

"Nothin' could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning ..."

Those are the words from an old song running through my head right now from my childhood days, and they might prove sort of "prophetic" for one of the GOP presidential candidates. The question is: Which candidate?

It appears probably not Mitt Romney, since his campaign people have pulled off something of a surprise. They are actually pulling most of their advertising in South Carolina and Florida. Uh, sure. I suppose that makes some sort of sense for the man who wants to be Everybody's Ronald Reagan for the 2000s -- no? No, I guess not.

There seems to be some maneuvering going on between McCain and Huckabee for the SC primary, and my money's on Happy Huckabee for that faceoff. The reason? Why, sure -- it's the spiritual/religious thing. And that's probably a good thing.

As I understand it, the whole point of creating and timing the SC GOP primary the way it is was to give conservative, religious folks a strong voice there. I've never been to either of the Carolinas. But one of my favorite people, a former pastor of mine, in fact, came here from several years of ministry in South Carolina. (He wasn't Baptist, like Happy is, but he was a conservative, evangelical pastor.)

Over the years, I've become (as I've mentioned in this blog numerous times) probably more "mainline" or even "liberal" in my religious views than I was as a young lad. But I have strong feelings of good will to my more conservative brothers and sisters out there. I am skeptical about many organized religions -- but I will NEVER be skeptical about good people of faith everywhere. So I say, let SC be SC -- and I'm going to "predict" Happy Huckabee, my good Baptist brother in the Lord, will win this one.

Ah, well, what do I know? I'm just a guy who reads the papers.
[tags]South Carolina primaries, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, conservatives, religious conservatives, people of faith, just a guy who reads the papers[/tags]