HARD RIGHT PUNDITS WEIGH McCAIN AND WILLARD AND OPT FOR WILLARD, THE LESSER OF TWO UNSPEAKABLE EVILS IN CRAZYLAND

Not only are the fringy Republicans who have managed to run away with the party's message and agenda for the past couple of decades, unhappy-- in the extreme-- about the lock McCain has on the party's nomination-- with many of them declaring they will bite the bullet and vote for the nearly as unpalatable Willard-- but now they're starting to fume about one of McCain's likely VP picks, The Huckster. Deranged McCain-hater Mark Levin excoriates Huckabee about pointing out the relationship between Sean Hannity, who has endorsed Willard, and Willard's vulture capital company, Bain. Although the thrust of Huckabee's argument is solid, some of the details aren't and Levin is all over him, asserting he's a "conspiracy kook."

Not enough attention is given this tendency we've seen from Huckabee. In South Carolina, where the Confederate flag issue was largely settled, he brought up during campaign stops to agitate for support. It was utterly irresponsible act. And then there was his devil-worship line about the Mormon faith, which was intended to raise questions about Romney's religion.

Why do the Stop McCain Forces have their panties in such a bunch over Huckabee now? They feel (in a post-Thompson world) he's taken over as McCain's right flank man and that he will suck up enough of the key Know Nothing vote in the backward precincts of the GOP heartland to keep Romney from making a comeback. Romney can't beat McCain without the Know Nothing vote-- and that's Huckabee territory.

There are, for example, 4 socially backward Neoconfederate states that have signed on to Super Tuesday: Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee (with 200 delegates at stake). It's not unlikely that Huckabee will be a decisive factor in these states, in a way that will benefit McCain. "Voters identifying themselves as evangelicals and Christian conservatives could make up more than half of the Republican electorate in" the 4 states. For Willard to win, he's got to convince voters that when they cast a ballot for Huckabee, who they genuinely like and respect, they are helping McCain, who they loathe and detest. It's probably a little abstract for your average evangelical Republican, who is used to a very black and white world spoon-fed daily by O'Reilly and Hannity, with some pictures of softcore porn spicin' it up at regular intervals.

"Huckabee's presence in the race hurts Romney a lot more than it hurts McCain because I think that Romney would be the second choice of the majority of evangelicals who are going to vote for Huckabee," said Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy agency of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Still, the craziest and most unrealistic of the true believers carefully nurture little gardens of delusion in their fertile minds. Besides, not all extreme right wing fanatics are opposed to McCain. The very respected and admired Radical-Right-for-Pay faction of the GOP, is perfectly comfortable with McCain; always has been.