Mike Huckabee’s not going to just sit around by the phone waiting for a call from John McCain about the VP slot. Instead he’s going to work for the Fox News Channel as a political commentator. Huckabee said in a statement:

“I hope to bring the unique perspective from ‘inside the dragon’s belly’ as well as to try and speak for the millions of hardworking middle-class Americans who really do feel that their voices are not being heard. I saw that on the campaign trail and continue to see as I speak to groups of all kinds around the country as well as campaign for other candidates.”

John McCain hosted a barbecue last weekend and invited several potential running mates, signaling the opening of vice presidential candidate speculation season. Joining the presumptive Republican nominee at his Arizona home were Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.* All would be acceptable choices to a struggling GOP, but who will best help unite Republicans around the McCain campaign?

Like Democrats, Republicans are fractured this election season. The party that can quickly unite to claim moderate and undecided voters will boost its chances of winning in November.

McCain’s biggest weak points are his age, his economic policy, and his weakness with religious voters. Christian conservatives do not have an easily identifiable candidate this election season. Though McCain stands for many evangelical values, he does not trumpet his faith as Bush did in 2000 and Huckabee did earlier this year.

Bobby Jindal could provide McCain with the support he needs in the Christian community. Though Catholic, Jindal has appeal amongst evangelicals for his pro-family positions, including a hard line against all abortion. Mitt Romney received a mixed reception from evangelicals during the GOP primary, and could prove a liability for McCain on matters of faith.

However, Romney would bring McCain much needed business experience for his economic policy, and would give the GOP a clear heir apparent for 2012. Romney might also be able to bring in Michigan, providing much needed electoral votes, or at the very least force Romney is spend resources there.

Charlie Crist has been a popular first term governor and is widely rumored to be amongst McCain’s favorites. But a Florida news poll last week showed he might not bring as many Florida votes in the general election as first thought. Additionally, John Miller trashed Crist in a National Review article last month, pointing out the Florida governor’s pro-liberal past.

Another potential candidate is Mike Huckabee, though the politician-turned-comedian would not bring much to the ticket that Jindal or Crist couldn’t offer. Governors Mark Sanford (R-SC) and Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), along with Secretary of State Condelleza Rice have also been mentioned as likely candidates.

*CORRECTION: Mike Huckabee was invited to the gathering but didn’t attend, choosing an anniversary trip with his wife instead.

Robert Novak published a Washington Post column yesterday that has two of its main subjects – Mike Huckabee and Michael Farris – voicing strong objections.

Cushioning the statement with lots of disclaimers, Novak said an anonymous, “experienced, credible activist in Christian politics” told him Huckabee “embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve. That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals: that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible’s prophecy.” The source also said homeschool activist Mike Farris privately embraces the same view.

Novak noted that both Huckabee and Farris denied the source’s claim, and they did so again after Novak published his column. Huckabee told ABC News the rumor was “total and absolute nonsense!” and the “unnamed source” was an “unbrained source.” On his Huckablog, he demanded, “Where do people dream up this stuff?” If Huckabee really is, as rumored, McCain’s top pick for vice president, the information is even less likely to be true, and there’s even more reason to loudly deny it.

Mike Farris told God-o-Meter, “I’m not supportive of the Obama presidency for any reason,” although he hasn’t endorsed McCain and told God-o-Meter he won’t mobilize evangelicals to campaign for him.

The column continues the discussion of where the evangelical vote will go this election. Farris’ position, says God-o-Meter, is an example of McCain’s main problem: Evangelicals may pull the lever for McCain but they won’t campaign for him. In the meantime, Democrats are intensifying their efforts to win religious-minded voters. The Plank’s Christopher Orr speculates that “a good many non-extreme Christians” will consider Obama as “clearly the more religious of the two candidates, a man who speaks, and has written, evocatively about the role of faith in his life.”

But will it work? Spiritual Politics’ Mark Silk points out that a Sunday Rasmussen poll found that evangelicals support McCain 69 percent to 28 percent — possible evidence that most evangelicals don’t share the view that the “plague” of an Obama presidency is just what America needs.

While most of the attention in Pennsylvania yesterday was on the battle for the Democratic nomination, the Republicans also held a primary in the Keystone State (as NJLawyer commented in last night’s results thread). The presumptive GOP nominee, John McCain, of course, won, capturing nearly 73 percent of the vote. But what about that other 27 percent? Ron Paul, who has not officially stopped running, picked up 16 percent, while Mike Huckabee, who has dropped out of the race, accounted for a little more than 11 percent of the vote.

Is this a protest vote against McCain, meaning that he still has a lot of work to do to unite his party? It will be interesting to chart this in the few primaries that remain.

Continuing through this year’s political R’s, let’s mention a couple of things about religion: All the candidates have spoken of their religious beliefs, yet as Alexis de Tocqueville described Americans in the 1830s, “It is often hard to know from listening to them whether the main intention of religion is to obtain everlasting joy in the next world or prosperity in this.” Or votes.

Journalists wrote and spoke the most about Mike Huckabee’s beliefs: A Lexis-Nexis search shows “Huckabee” and “religious right” appearing 893 times during the three months before the Texas and Ohio primaries. Religious liberal Obama, though, typically avoided such characterization: His name and “religious left” appeared together only 28 times during that period. Huckabee received press criticism for an Iowa ad that called him a “Christian leader,” but few fussed about a South Carolina brochure that praised Obama as a “committed Christian” who is “called to Christ.”

Obama has benefited from messianic hopes, and indulged them by (among other things) saying that he and his supporters can become “a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest.” But he should not be ridiculed as lightweight because some of his fans swoon: He is delivering the “social gospel” that became prominent a century ago more skillfully than anyone else has done in recent decades.

Obama’s profession of faith invigorates many and scares few because it is horizontal rather than vertical, with an emphasis on finding community rather than communing with God. Community organizers Obama worked with two decades ago saw “a part of me that remained removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst. And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well — that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.”

Obama says his joining a church “came about as a choice, and not an epiphany.” Choices do not bother secular Americans, epiphanies do. Joining a church to fight loneliness makes it as unobjectionable as joining a social club, but his affiliation serves as an antidote to evidence-less charges that Obama is secretly a Muslim. He says, “I’ve been to the same church, the same Christian church, for almost 20 years.”

Obama’s Christian affiliation also gives him the opportunity to dip into language that has resonated with many Americans in prior religious left campaigns such as those of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, 1900, and 1908. Bryan, of course, lost all three times, because of the American tendency to – sooner or later – make reality-based decisions. More on this next time.

Let us know your thoughts as the primary results from Vermont, Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island roll in …

VERMONT: Barack Obama and John McCain take the Green Mountain State.

OHIO: McCain easily defeats Mike Huckabee, who will address his supporters at 9:15 p.m. Obama’s campaign has filed a complaint to keep the polls open in Cuyahoga County and other counties—weather and ballot shortages are cited as reasons.

UPDATE: As McCain appears to have locked up the Republican nomination tonight, he plans to visit the White House tomorrow and then address the Republican National Committee.

RHODE ISLAND: McCain wins the Ocean State.

TEXAS: McCain wins again, and with the Lone Star State’s delegates, he will have the 1,191 needed to capture the Republican nomination.

UPDATE: Huckabee calls McCain to concede the nomination and then tells supporters that he’s dropping out of the race.

RHODE ISLAND: Hillary Clinton breaks Obama’s 12-primary winning streak, taking Little Rhody.

OHIO: Clinton makes it two in a row with a win in the Buckeye State.

TEXAS: Clinton takes the Texas primary, too.

John McCain inched closer to the Republican nomination yesterday by easily defeating Mike Huckabee in the Wisconsin and Washington primaries. On the Democratic side, as pundits ponder Michelle Obama’s pride, or lack thereof, in her country, her husband Barack made it ten in a row, beating Hillary in both Wisconsin and Hawaii.

Is Barack Obama too hip for his own good? John Dickerson wonders if Obamaniacs will stay faithful: “Isn’t the generation that Obama has so successfully courted usually the first to toss overhyped products, even the overhyped products with which they were at first so enthralled?” Slate also publishes a letter from a cynical, hip ex-Obamaniac who’s dumping Obama for being too cool.

Doug Kmiec thinks Catholics will buy into Obama-as-Messiah hysteria, too. Crunchy Con and National Review’s The Corner scoff at the idea.

After a depressing couple of weeks, Hillary Clinton scrambles to hold her supporters together, contrasting “speeches” with “solutions,” and “Yes, we can!” with “Yes, we will!” Some Democrats still consider dumping her and switching their allegiance to Obama, while other Democrats vow to stay neutral. Peggy Noonan suggests honesty as a campaign strategy: “When everyone in America knows you’re in a dreadful position, admit you’re in a dreadful position.” Clinton is leading in Ohio polls and may have a victory to anticipate in Texas, depending on which poll you read.

Good news for John McCain: He gets endorsements from George Bush, Sr., and Mitt Romney. Bad news: The candidate trumpeting campaign finance reform could use some campaign cash. McCain is adopting some unorthodox fundraising techniques and challenging Obama, who’s currently rolling in dough, to keep his promise to run a publicly-financed general election campaign.

In the New York Times, Gail Collins says McCain is caving on issues like economic recovery and torture. His campaign dismisses allegations that his vote against an anti-torture bill is inconsistent with his anti-torture statements.

Mike Huckabee’s quixotic campaign finally gains some media attention —- for his paid speech in the Cayman Islands and for an IRS investigation of a pastoral endorsement.

Back on Aug. 11, Wiley Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., sent out a press release on church letterhead announcing his personal endorsement of Mike Huckabee for president. That got the attention of Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, who filed a complaint with the IRS, which sent Drake a 14-page letter last week informing him of an investigation into his actions. “I commend the IRS for investigating Pastor Drake’s flagrant abuse of church resources,” Lynn told the Associated Press. Attorney Eric Stanley, who is representing Drake on behalf of the Alliance Defense Fund, said, “[Pastors] can feel free to personally endorse candidates. It was not a church endorsement and he made that very clear.”