Newsweek interviewed Richard Land, who they described as "a leading evangelical [serving] as president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission." Some of the highlights:
NEWSWEEK: So we wanted to ask you, first of all, about the third-party idea and whether it's serious. A number of people are suggesting it's just a threat.
Richard Land: My intuition [is that] this is not a bluff. If Giuliani is the nominee there will be a third party...This is not a bluff.
NEWSWEEK: Is Huckabee's success there a harbinger of things to come? Is he starting to gain some traction?
Richard Land:
We'll see. Everyone says he does great when he speaks; everyone says he does great in the debates. But so far that hasn't translated either into fund-raising success or into a surge in the polls...
I think a third-party campaign is likely to ensure the Democratic nominee the Presidency. All the talk about a third-party run is, in the very least, premature. Mike Huckabee is a candidate who holds values that are not just consistent with those in the Bible, as Dr. Grudem put it, but they seem to be genuinely derived from the Bible, and he has the skill to communicate those values to other people in a way that bridges the gap between ideological lines. This is vertical politics, as the Governor puts it, and his message resounds with anyone who hears it. Talking of a prospective third-party run while Huckabee is still in the race is ridiculous. Instead, evangelicals should throw their support around him.
