Conventional wisdom says Mike Huckabee won’t run for president in 2012. And if he does run, he won’t win the Republican nomination. Here’s why:

1. He’s not setting up the kind of organization he’d need to win the Republican nomination.
2. He’s not raising the kind of money he’d need to win the Republican nomination.
3. He’s skipping the spring 2011 Republican presidential debates.
4. He’s too busy making a lot of money and building a new estate in the Florida panhandle.
5. He’s put on a few pounds.
6. Those gubernatorial pardons and commutations.
7. He lost the Values Voters straw poll.

I wouldn’t be shocked if Gov. Huckabee sits this one out. But I also wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see him get in the race. Here’s why:

1. He didn’t have the kind of money he needed to win the 2008 Republican nomination — and look what he accomplished. This time, he has higher name ID, higher approval ratings and better fundraising capabilities. And this time, there’s no John McCain.

2. He didn’t have the kind of organization he needed to win the 2008 Republican nomination — but he won in Iowa and across much of the South. This time, he might actually win in South Carolina. And as a brand-new Floridian, he might be able to pull an upset in the Sunshine State. (Sen. Rubio was a Huckabee supporter in 2008, you may recall….) Huckabee’s favorable ratings are really high.

3. Mitt Romney is still Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee is still Mike Huckabee. Evangelicals, on average, like Mike. A large segment of that demographic still hasn’t taken a liking to Romney. As a candidate, Huckabee not only has a shot at the GOP nomination, he can also derail Romney 2012.

4. A 2012 candidacy could, temporarily, make it harder for Huckabee to make money. But he’s more marketable, long term, if he runs in 2012. If the FOX News gig — or something like it — is available post 2012, it will be really tempting to run in 2012 because:

5. Huckabee’s doing really, really well in the polls. National polls show him neck and neck (or ahead of) Romney. All those tens of millions of dollars that Gov. Romney spent and he’s still unable to leave Mike Huckabee in the dust.

6. The campaign doesn’t get really expensive and the media attention doesn’t get really ratcheted up until you throw your hat in the ring. Mike Huckabee’s name ID isn’t going to drop between now and the summer. His positive ratings are unlikely to plummet. But potential GOP rivals are going to be loathe to run attack ads against a man who may not even be running for president. After all, it’s money down the drain — and they’ll all be lining up to get Huckabee’s endorsement if he opts out of the 2012 race.

7. Pounds, schmounds. If Huckabee could capture the “struggling with their weight” demographic, he’d win the election in a landslide. As long as he looks more like his “AFTER” picture than his “BEFORE” picture, he’ll do just fine. And anyone who makes cracks about his weight will see it backfire. Most Americans “feel his pain” and know his battle.

8. Pardons. It’s definitely a potential Achille’s heel. But Mitt Romney has an Achille’s heel of his own — it’s socialized medicine, universal health care, Romney care. A candidate with money and name ID who can attack Huckabee’s pardons and Romney’s health care plan would be well-situated. But who could that be?

9. Sarah Palin? Conventional wisdom says she’ll collapse if she gets in the GOP primary. Polls suggest Huckabee is the second choice of many Palin backers. If Huckabee can position himself as the anti-Romney, he’ll have a fighting chance. What he can’t afford is to be splitting the social conservative vote with a third candidate.

10. Mike Huckabee enjoys campaigning. I covered his campaign in Iowa, Michigan, Florida and Texas and I got the feeling he really loves being on the campaign trail. And chances are, he’ll never be better situated than he is right now to win the Republican nomination.

BY CHARLIE FRAGO
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
JANUARY 23, 2011

NEW ORLEANS — In the year that wind and water devastated New Orleans, a small charity affiliated with the 6.5 million-member Church of God in Christ promised to raise and distribute $1 million to Hurricane Katrina victims.

Cash poured into Memphis-based COGIC Charities like never before — nearly $1.5 million in 2005, Internal Revenue Service forms show.
Current Presiding Bishop Charles E. Blake, who was born in central Arkansas, handed out $100 bills to Katrina survivors in Los Angeles shortly after the disaster.

But more than five years after the waters receded — and five years after the money was raised — COGIC Charities hasn’t kept its promise to give away $1 million to Hurricane Katrina survivors, its own documents show.
(more…)

The new Governor of Alabama today says Alabamans are his brothers and sisters — but only if they’re “saved” Christians.

The comment was made today at a church where Martin Luther King once served as pastor.

As long as he treats everyone else like neighbors (and loves his neighbors like he loves himself), he’ll probably get along fine with most folks.

President Barack Obama today signed a proclamation declaring Sunday to be Religious Freedom Day. The text is below. (more…)

In 1982, when Israel’s military was accused of being responsible — directly or indirectly — for a massacre of hundreds of Muslims in refugee camps in Lebanon, Israeli leaders, including Ariel Sharon, erupted with indignation, labeling the allegations “blood libel.”

He interpreted the term, as far as I can tell, the same way that Sarah Palin interpreted it.

One is guilty of blood libel, Sharon suggested, when one falsely accuses another of being responsible for bloodshed.

Cries of “blood libel” weren’t confined to 1982. Israeli officials have made similar allegations, from time to time, over the years. (For example, in 1953, Israel accused the Soviet Union of blood libel).

As far as I can tell, no one accused the Israeli government — or Ariel Sharon — of anti-Semitism for using the term.

This just in from the Associated Press:

JERUSALEM — Israel is inviting tourists to retrace the footsteps of the Virgin Mary, officials said Tuesday, in the latest campaign to bring Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land.
A new itinerary developed by the Tourism Ministry helps tour operators plan pilgrimages to sites where the mother of Jesus Christ lived and traveled. They include her birthplace near Nazareth in northern Israel, as well as Mary’s Spring and the Tomb of the Virgin near Jerusalem.
The Virgin Mary itinerary includes holy sites in the West Bank as well, including Bethlehem.
In 2010, 69 percent of Israel’s almost 3.5 million tourists were Christians — mostly Catholics. Now Israel is encouraging return visits by those who have already made their first pilgrimage.

Yes, I’m guessing Mary’s Tomb is going to be a big draw for Roman Catholics.

For the past six decades, it has been apostasy for Roman Catholics to believe in the existence of Mary’s tomb.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII declared:

By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

45. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.

Yep. Call this teaching into doubt, and you’ve fallen away completely from the Catholic faith. And it gets worse. Pope Pius XII added:

It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

—

Like I said, I’m guessing Israel’s tourism experts are going to have a hard time ginning up business at Mary’s Tomb.

But they’re not the only ones who have their work cut out for them. Officials in Jordan are hyping “Lot’s cave” as a tourist attraction.

According to the book of Genesis, Lot (a man with something of a drinking problem) sought refuge in a cage after fleeing from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

What allegedly happens next is highly offensive — especially to our friends in the Moabite and Ammonite communities. Hard to see how they could make this a tourist attraction. But the Jordan Tourism Board is trying.

This commercial won’'t appear on Super Bowl Sunday

There’s a Super Bowl-sized uproar that’s erupted due to a commercial that mixes church and snacks. The minute-long spot depicts a down-on-its luck congregation that feeds the multitudes with Doritos instead of loaves and Pepsi Max instead of fishes.

Is the ad funny? Blasphemous? Or both?

Whoever put the spot together may have committed a mortal sin, but he clearly knows a thing or two about religion — and the Bible. The ad’s closing tag says “FYF — Feed Your Flock.” But the ad is titled “Feed the Flock.”

And “Feed the Flock” is a direct quote from the Bible. Specifically 1 Peter 5:2. And it’s a memory verse with an attitude. It’s a command to church leaders and it states:

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;

My gut tells me the guy that put this spot together knows plenty about the sacraments and about Scriptures. Perhaps he’s an ex-Christian or post-Christian. Perhaps he’s still a believer, but he’s just sick and tired of church.

By the way, the Doritos and Pepsi Max promotion may be art imitating real life. When I was at Harvard, I remember reading about a local [liberal Protestant] minister who had served Wonder Bread and a non-grape-based beverage during Communion (I think it was beer). That struck me, 25 years ago, as sacrilege.

There’s a new, original and delightful blog that I want to tell you about. It’s called neighborhoodchurches.blogspot.com

The point of the blog — to visit 50 different houses of worship in one neighborhood in one year.

The blog’s creator uses a pseudonym — Bob McGrath — a name he borrowed from one of the regulars on Sesame Street.

And he’s vague about where he lives, writing:

Where am I? Anytown, America, right next door to you.

Wherever he lives, it’s diverse enough to have an Islamic Center and its lush enough to have towering trees.

The author starts off, on Week 1, by returning to the church building he attended as a child. The original congregation has apparently moved to bigger quarters. A new denomination has moved in. Here’s how he describes stepping into the foyer for the first time in years:

The balcony was empty and the entrance was blocked. But the smell was the same. As soon as I opened one of the big double doors I caught the aroma of fundamentalism that I’d remembered from those early years.

(You’ll have to ask the blog author what fundamentalism smells like. I’m not sure.)

The visiting church guy shows up five minutes earlier than the starting time listed on the church’s web site, but the service is already in full swing. (It could be worse — I visited a church recently that started 30 minutes after the time listed on its web site.

Anyhow, this is a novel and fun new website. I recommend that you stop by Mr. McGrath’s neighborhood. I think you’ll enjoy it.