Last night I wrote about the Huckabee surge in the polls, and why I didn’t find him a viable candidate for president. My belief in that has solidified even more today after reading about a question he asked in an upcoming interview to be published in Sunday’s NYT magazine:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, asks in an upcoming article, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”

The article, to be published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, says Huckabee asked the question after saying he believes Mormonism is a religion but doesn’t know much about it. His rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, is a member of the Mormon church, which is known officially as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The authoritative Encyclopedia of Mormonism, published in 1992, does not refer to Jesus and Satan as brothers. It speaks of Jesus as the son of God and of Satan as a fallen angel, which is a Biblical account.

I think the question in and of itself is a valid one, and there is a place for discussion about it - but it’s not in the presidential race. It’s within the church, and amongst believers and non alike. I could appreciate Huckabee’s wearing his Christianity on his sleeve a lot more if he didn’t do it so much on the campaign trail, and I say this as a Christian conservative who is most certainly not offended by public prayer, the invoking of God by public officials, having “under God” in the pledge, “In God We Trust” on our currency, etc. But having said that, no matter the context in which the question was asked, Huckabee is going over the top here, and he needs to back off the Mormon issue big time. He’s running for President of the United States, not the Reverend of the United States.

It’s no wonder the Democrats are licking their chops at the possibility of Huckabee being the Republican nominee: they know full well they’ll have to do very little in the way of attacking Huckabee. The anti-Christian mediots will take care of their dirty work for them, and judging by his current performance, he’ll be giving them plenty of ammunition to do just that, effectively deep-sixing his own campaign.

As if all of this isn’t irritating enough, MSNBC’s First Read reports today that Alan Keyes - a “reverend” of sorts in his own mind and infamous for many things, including calling Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter a “selfish hedonist,” will be participating in this afternoon’s Republican debate.

If you’re interested in tuning in to the debate but can’t get to a TV, John Hawkins will be liveblogging it. It starts at 2 ET, and is the last Republican debate before the Iowa caucus.

Related Campaign ‘08 news:

—- Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics makes some predictions as to how the Republican debate will go today.

—- The NY Daily News has an interesting article today about how Bill Clinton is taking more of an active role in helping manage Hillary Clinton’s campaign, especially now that the numbers are tightening up (more here) just a few weeks ahead the start of the primaries.

—- No doubts that her media machine will be making a full court press between now and then.

—- Dennis Kucinich has been booted from the Dem Iowa debate, scheduled for tomorrow. Find out why here.

—- Who is moderating the Republican and Dem debates in Iowa this week? The Boston Globe profiles Carolyn Washburn here.

—- And speaking of the Globe, Scott Lehigh wonders if Oprah’s endorsement of Obama will have a lasting impact.

—- Heh.