On Monday, January 14, theocrat and Republican presidential candidate, Michael Huckabee, riding high among the Christian Right in the Bible belt and in the deep South, inadvertently announced his agenda:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

For those of you who are fortunate or unfortunate enough, as the case may be, to recall the striking image of Elmer Gantry appealing to the proletariat to forsake their ways and, of course, their meager funds, a picture of the Huckabee appeal begins to emerge.  The mere exercise of superimposing Burt Lancaster will instantly translate Elmer Gantry into South Carolina or Mike Huckabee into Gritzmaker Springs, KA. 

Despite Sinclair Lewis's disclaimer in his book on which the movie was based that "No character in this book is a portrait of any actual person," clicking back and forth is too facile for comfort.  Evangelicals who have become so corrupted by culture as to have forsaken seersucker suits and white socks with their inherent vapid pronouncements stand in stunned silence as the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt plunges like lemmings over the precipice of history.

So long, however, as there is a segment of the population (perhaps as many as 30% of Americans) that insists that a few carefully selected Bible verses will cover a lifetime of intellectual laziness, the Elmer Gantry's of this world will always have a platform.

Huckabee long ago mounted that platform that moves gracefully from the ghetto of the fundamentalist church to the political caucus.  In that sense, Elmer Gantry has been updated to a vista that likely may never have occurred either to Sinclair Lewis or to the producers of the movie.

While we dare not ascribe to Huckabee the hypocrisy evident in the evangelist Gantry, the question remains whether the Huckabee phenomenon represents progress or digression.  The question also remains as to whether or not hypocrisy is a vital ingredient in both the religious practices and political leanings of the Christian Right in America.

From the Right, the Elmer Gantry image is projected onto former Vice President Al Gore.  As "Father of the Internet" and prophet of Global Warming, the appeal of Gore to the intellectually challenged is irresistible to some, they say.  Conservative writer, James Lewis, posturing himself as an "American Thinker," has this to say about Al Gore:

The comparison between Al Gore and Elmer Gantry is hard to resist, the main difference being that Elmer Gantry was a fictional mixture of the populist preachers of Sinclair Lewis' time. But Gantry was solidly based on fact, just as Al Gore is deeply entrenched in fiction.  A shrewd mix of fact and fiction is the stock in trade of many a carnival barker and politician.

 

Both Elmer and Al are basically Southern-style demagogues; both are cagey PR preachers who have made it pay very well, thank you; both have lives of dubious moral standing. (Remember the 1996 immigrant legalization fraud? The impoverished Buddhist nuns in LA who suddenly provided mucho dinero to Al Gore's presidential campaign? Remember Al Gore Sr., who was reputedly in the deep pockets of Soviet KGB paymaster Armand Hammer for many years?  

 

When Al Gore adopted the voice and dialect of a Black Baptist preacher in the 2000 election, most of us cringed in embarrassment. Looking back, it may have been a moment of true self-discovery. Ever since, Mr. Gore has been morphing into a very secular Old Testament Jeremiah. [1]

For the consumption of the average, middle-of-the-road American attempting to dodge the bullet of governmental meddling, it would appear that the Gantry phenomenon is alive and well in American politics.  As from many a pulpit, telling the people what they want to hear fits nicely into the process of earning their votes.

The tragedy comes when what the people want to hear is beyond the scope of mere rhetoric and posturing, a situation in which America is fast finding itself mired.
 

[1] http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/al_gore_goes_elmer_gantry.html