Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is a different kind of Christian conservative. Instead of coming across as just another right wing spear carrier for the Republican party, he brought to the table something that Christians in politics seemed to have been strangely lacking; namely, a sense of compassion. Also wit. As he told Leno, he reminded people of someone they worked with, rather than the guy who laid them off (an allusion to rival Mitt Romney). Huckabee is not above using government to help the little guy.
As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee’s compassion led him to grant clemency to quite a few prisoners. Now one of them, Maurice Clemmons, has killed four police officers. (To be fair, his granting the parole didn’t lead directly to the new crimes. The parolee got thrown in jail again in another state, whereupon he was again set free.)
The pioneering Christian blogger Joe Carter, who now blogs for First Things, served on Huckabee’s staff during his presidential campaign. He thinks highly of Governor Huckabee but reports that he applied his Christian faith in such a way that he did show mercy to criminals, especially if they reported a conversion, were recommended by a pastor, or made up for their crime through “restorative justice.” But Joe thinks he was sometimes naive in doing so.
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