Game on

Boston radio host Michael Graham talked with Tucker Carlson today about Mitt Romney's presidential prospects in 2008. His comments got interesting:

From the November 27 edition of MSNBC's Tucker:

CARLSON: Wait a second, you have to get past, as you just said, you have to get past all those South Carolina primary voters in the Republican primary. I didn't go to Oral Roberts [University], but last time I checked, evangelicals considered Mormonism not a species of Christianity, but a cult. They don't like it at all. That's not a problem?

GRAHAM: And the last time I checked, evangelicals didn't consider Judaism a form of Christianity either, and yet Joe Lieberman is wildly popular --

CARLSON: Very good point.

GRAHAM: -- and is probably the most popular Democrat among Southern Republicans. In the modern era, it is not one religion versus another. In the modern era, where the media is anti-religious, where people feel like Christmas itself is under assault, and where anytime someone of faith stands up, they're called rubes and rednecks and idiots and Christianists -- the line here is for God and against God. And anybody who's on God's team, with the possible exception of Islam right now, everybody is on -- that's on the God team will be welcomed by Southern Republican voters.

CARLSON: That is, I think, a really smart point about Joe Lieberman. Michael Graham, thank you very much.

My first remark is, of course, bosh. Tell me that a socially conservative person of Central Asian descent who is an openly devout Sikh will be acceptable to a Southern Republican. A white guy who shares at least some of the same holy texts as you, sure, but someone whose religious practices seem foreign (despite the presence of remarkable similarities in core beliefs), no.

More remarkable, however, is the importance that Mr. Graham gives to the "Southern Republican." In one respect, this archetypal voter is important: to win the GOP presidential, you have to appeal to Southern Republicans and their (dwindling) allies in other regions. On the other hand, the last election made fairly clear that a good chunk of the people outside of the South - people who've witnessed six years of one-party rule by Southern Republicans - don't want anyone acceptable to social conservatives in Dixie anywhere near the levers of government. They scare us.

So, if the Republicans want to put up a candidate who plays to their regional base in the South, I say go for it. If Southern conservatives want to support folks who want the government involved in the most intimate aspects of their lives, let 'em. The rest of us will find candidates who reject the bigoted moral authoritarianism of the confederate Elmer Gantrys.