Politics in America is not all that complicated. The Republican Party (like the Federalists and Whigs before them) represent the richest handful of Americans. Presently, it is one percent or less. If you only represent one percent of the electorate in a democracy, you have to scam about half the voters to win an election. That is where conservatism and its counterparts come in: these are just slogans for those who have to be scammed.

Back in the American past, rich Americans were largely concerned with making money and getting rich. Thus, the emphasis on freedom, low taxes, small government, etc. Now we have enough Americans (like the Bush family) who have been rich enough, long enough, that their major concerns are low taxes on wealth and authoritarian government to protect their interests. This is actually Burke's style of conservatism: he thought the proper role of government was to protect wealth from talent.

Since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Republican Party has done a fabulous job of screwing 90 to 95 percent of the American people to benefit the richest one percent. That's all that conservatism means: politics in the service of the wealthy.

The problem with George W. Bush is that he is simply running the country for the benefit of himself, his family and their rich friends, and it's starting to be obvious to an increasingly large group of people.

If Romney is the nominee, I will happily become an anti-Mormon religious bigot until after the election.

I have read a report that the Mormons used to castrate young males so they could not compete sexually with the patriarchs? How many "wives" did Joseph Smith finally have? Was it 21? 23? But then, we should hold those questions until we see if Romney is actually the nominee. No sense in being nasty for no good purpose.

Whether Mormons can be considered Christians seems to me to be answered in the negative. There are basically two traditions that justify calling a religion Christian: Catholics insist on bishops in the apostolic succession; Protestants insist on the primacy of Christian scripture (both Old and New Testaments). Mormons do not seem to recognize the authority of either. Calling them Christian makes as much sense as calling Voodoo cults who refer to Jesus and Mary Christian.

I would like to clarify my earlier comment:

Whether Mormons are Christians is essentially an academic argument. I do not think they qualify under any reasonable set of assumptions. I cited traditions of authority; someone else quoted the Creed that would also exclude Mormons, but the arguments are largely irrelevant. I personally suspect that none of the candidates in either party believes in God and their religions will not affect their policy decisions, but I tend to be cynical.

What is important about Romney's Mormonism is that it is one more way to attack him. Some people would take it seriously. If Democrats can peel off 5 or 10 percent of his potential voters that way, it might swing an election. Republicans have played abortion and gun control that way.

Democrats need to think about what Republicans did to the Clintons, and go and do likewise. Until Democrats are willing to try in any way they can to personally destroy Republican candidates, it is not a fair fight. Romney made a bunch of money. What kind of taxes did he pay? Why aren't Democrats trying to put people's wives in jail?

Dammit Max, you weren't supposed to tell until after the Republicans nominated him.

The Republican dream team would be a Romney-Huckabee ticket: the heretic and the hypocrite.

I am promoting the notion of a Romney--Huckabee Republican ticket. We could call them the Heretic and the Hypocrite.

I have said this before, but I would argue very seriously that it is absolutely impossible to be a Republican and a Christian. Jesus told us that what you say doesn't mean squat--it's about feeding the hungry and loving the unlovely. Square that with anything the Republican Party has done since 1980--or maybe 1880.

As a life long (except for getting educated) Southern, and as someone who has had lots of experience with Southern Baptists (they have been trying to save me since I was about eight), I'd like to cut Mike Huckabee a little slack on the religious pronouncements. Yeah, he has said a bunch of things that sound somewhere between weird and outrageous to anyone with a post enlightenment mind, but he sort of has to. That's the way those people talk. He has to deny evolution and say that men are supposed to be the head of their families or he'd be complete phony (and, of course, that doesn't bother most of his competition).

The serious question is how his beliefs would affect the way he governed, and there the record is a mixed bag: Nasty opposition to abortion in circumstances that would shock the conscience for most of us and primitive, uninformed views of HIV and homosexuality; but seemingly heartfelt charitable responses to Catrina refugees (Arkansas did better than any other state and got less credit for it) and to the children of illegal immigrants.

There are better reasons for being scared of this guy; but I'm trying to keep quiet until they nominate him.