If this is truly how the GOP leadership really thinks, why should I bother anymore

Alright Alright I dropped the ball on finishing the stream of consciousness postings I started a few days ago. I will come back to it.

What has got me angry over the last 48 hours is the recent peeling back of what the GOP Elite, or at least a large portion of it, really thinks about Southern, Evangelical conservatives, has made me wonder if there really is a place for me in the post George W Bush Republican party.

Let me start of by stipulating that Governor Mike Huckabee is not my first , second, or even third choice for the Republican nomination for President. He is far too willing to resort to using government power to force his personal preferences (a la federal ban on smoking - where the hell in the Constitution does the Federal Government have that authority?)

That said, it's one thing to point out Mike Huckabee's apparent statist tendencies, or question his judgment and/or his seemingly naive understanding of human nature in the Wayne Dumond case. That's politics. But this is not what is being said. Rather it's the snide remarks about his Baptist faith, usually from Catholics or Episcopals that scream "Religious bigot!" when it is the other way around, and ignorant stereotyping of Arkansas and the rest of the South, and the snarky comments about where he went to college. For the record, I studied for two years at Huckabee's university, Ouachita Baptist University, from 1990 to 1992, and I can assure you, OBU is far from a slouch academically. It is one of the top Liberal Arts colleges in the South and arguably in the top nationwide. This type of discourse is way way way out of line.

It isn't the questioning of Huckabee's record, but the almost gleeful tone of condescension on nationalreview.com, and hughhewitt.com, and the out and out derision toward Southern evangelicals in associated reader comments on these, that make me wonder why I should even care anymore.

This is not the first time I have heard this attitude from a GOP Bigwig, nor are these two sites the only places I am reading this kind of garbage, but I was under the impression that such disparaging attitudes toward Evangelicals was isolated and generally condemned in the Republican mainstream. Well, apparently not. As the saying goes, it is better to have clarity than agreement.

So, since the Romney-ites and Guiliani'ers have nothing but disdain and contempt for my faith and region, why should I vote for them? Since is has become crystal clear that the New York-Washington GOP Elite see me and folks like me as "useful idiots", why would I want to waste any more time and effort in voting for GOP candidates?

At least the Democrats are honest about their hatred of Southern evangelicals.