It’s been pretty amusing over the past couple of days to watch elite conservative pundits wet themselves over Mike Huckabee’s rise to front-runner status. It’s as though all those years of courting evangelical voters without actually delivering much have led to rising expectations among this crucial part of the GOP base.

It’s more than a little ironic that conservatives are now re-enacting on a smaller scale the hissy fit the Left threw in the wake of the 2004 presidential election. That’s when, you’ll recall, we were hearing ad nauseum about “values voters” and blue staters were furtively e-mailing maps of “Jesusland” and planning their escape to Canada, certain that the candle of Enlightenment had gone out in the good ol’ US of A. Now elite conservatives are starting to worry they may no longer be able to control the monster they’ve created. What’s next? The Manhattan cocktail parties and country clubs will be overrun by Baptists in polyester slacks carrying big floppy leather bound KJV Bibles!

Now, for my part, I think the conservative movement could use a little creative destruction. I think a conservatism that was more sensitive to economic justice and to the concerns of ordinary people would certainly be an improvement over Bushian tax-cut-and-spend. Huck has even made some noises in the direction of a less belligerent (dare we say “more humble”?) foreign policy and talked relative good sense on global warming. It’s almost as if he was taking on that Jesus stuff seriously! Horrors!

Now, as I’ve said, Huckabee is too much of a culture warrior (even if one with a sunny smile) for my taste, it does seem that his command of policy is less than stellar, and he has an annoyingly statist nanny streak. But his rise, along with Ron Paul’s, and the inability of conservatives to consolidate their support behind one candidate suggests to me that conservatism is ripe for a serious re-thinking. Plus, I cheer on anything that imperils Rudy Giuliani’s chances of becoming president.