To read the second of this three-part installment, please click here.

Over two decades later in 2008, another southern governor raised his religious rank and presented a more radical—perhaps the most in our history—faith-driven political message, marking an even greater exit from JFK’s message.

In the run-up to the Iowa caucuses and the Christmas Holiday, Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and an ordained Baptist minister, appealed to the conservative Evangelicals in ad “What Really Matters.” In the shot, Huckabee is dressed in a red sweater while a rendition of “Silent Night” plays in the background.

Huckabee sits behind a colorfully lit Christmas tree and what appears to be an enormous hanging white cross and. (In response to several reports in the media, Huckabee asserted that it was not a subliminal white cross, but merely a bookshelf or window pane.)

In the ad, he sympathizes with voters who are “worn out” by negative political commercials. Instead of explaining a policy position or criticizing an opponent, Huckabee wishes Iowans a “Merry Christmas” and reminds them “what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ, and being with family and friends.”

HUCKABEE: Are you about worn out of all the television commercials you’ve been seeing, mostly about politics? I don’t blame you. At this time of year, sometimes it’s nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ, and being with our family and our friends. I hope that you and your family will have a magnificent Christmas season. And on behalf of all of us, God bless, and Merry Christmas. I’m Mike Huckabee, and I approve this message.

A humorous, lighthearted politician and an authentic religious character, Huckabee struck chords with voters. The effectiveness of the ad—and the strength of Huckabee’s connection to the cultural and religious fiber of Iowan Republicans—became clear after his double-digit victory in the state, garnering 34% of the vote (compared to Romney’s 25%, Thompson’s 13%, and McCain’s 13%.).

In response to the advertisement, Barry Lynn, executive director of the advocacy group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said she had “never seen such a religion-drenched primary.”

In contrast to JFK (and Carter and Reagan, although to a lesser degree), Huckabee himself did little to diffuse concerns that he would be the nation’s first Minister-in-Chief. For instance, he extensively quoted scripture on the campaign trail.

When Huckabee’s poll numbers soared, he responded to a student questioner, “It’s the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people,” alluding to the Biblical chapter in which Jesus miraculously feeds the entire crowd with little food.

“Sometimes, one small smooth stone is even more effective than a whole lot of armor,” Huckabee said in his Super Tuesday victory speech, suggesting that his rise was similar to Shepard boy David’s improbable slaying of Goliath. He referred to his campaign successes as “miracles” and has pleaded with voters for more of them in the past weeks.

Furthermore, when asked on the campaign trail about his two differing loyalties as JFK was in 1960, Huckabee noted that his religious values do not end with his sermons or with his regular Church attendance.

Rather, he suggested that they are the values he carried with him to the Governor’s mansion in Arkansas and has used to approach his decisions and views on public policy questions—not only promoting a “culture of life” through his views on abortion and homosexual marriage, but by “compassionate stances” on immigration, health care, and education.

In Dike, Iowa, Huckabee remarked to a crowd, “What’s wrong with our country, what is wrong with our culture, is that you can’t say the name Jesus Christ without people going completely berserk.”

A New York Times article, “Politicians Talk More About Religion, And People Expect Them To,” published in 2004, perhaps best captures the evolution of the role of religion in the political campaigns of Kennedy to Huckabee.

“42 percent of those surveyed said they welcomed candidates discussion the role of religion in their lives. By comparison, the pollsters noted, in 1984 only 22 percent of Americans agreed that presidential candidates should discuss the role of religion in their lives,” the article reported.

While the poll doesn’t contain public opinion on the same question from 1960 or 2008, the likelihood is the number was even slimmer then and is larger now. In the article, she noted that both Democrats and Republicans—like Carter and Huckabee—have participated in the continuing religious transformation of the American political landscape.

Trinity College’s Mark Silk has characterized the “rising acceptance of religion in campaigns” as a “clear social trend.”

“It is the extent to which the Evangelical voice has come back to American national politics, and the expectation since the 1980’s that somehow it’s a normal thing to talk about religion.”

Since Kennedy’s 1960 “Religion” ad, the cultural currents—specifically, the rise of the Evangelist voting bloc steadily expanded since Ronald Reagan’s White House tenure and during George W. Bush’s presidency—have allowed candidates to offer more religious-driven messages.

Jimmy Carter’s “Bible” was a first step for the further injection of religion into the modern American political campaign, unlike Kennedy’s stricter adherence to the separation of church and state.

Huckabee’s 2008 “What Really Matters” (and his candidacy in general) injected more potent religious messaging and imagery into the national political scene, demonstrating the ever-growing power of the Christian right in many quarters of the United States.

The three ads offer a compelling snapshot of the rising role of religion in political ads and public life more broadly since 1960.

Popularity: 1% [?]