As I was looking at Casting Stones, I came across this post that had some interesting information on an important Michigan endorsement for Romney.  Apparently, Marlene Elwell, an old Christian Coalition hand and one-time Pat Robertson backer, has been working hard to stop Huckabee, and here is one of her reasons:

Though she says the Huckabee camp repeatedly tried to sign her during 2007, Elwell calls the former Arkansas governor a liberal on non-hot button social issues like education.

What this means in the real world is that one of the few candidates actively supported by a large network of homeschooling families and one of the strongest defenders of homeschooling in the race is “liberal” on education because he doesn’t support school vouchers.  This takes crazy litmus-test politics to a new level, or a new low, depending on how you want to look at it.  The principled reason to support vouchers is that you support the right of parents to choose where their children can go to school, so it is preposterous to say that a leading defender of homeschooling is simply a “liberal” on education without any qualification.  If you don’t like his position on vouchers, fine, but let’s be honest about what the real objection is.  Vouchers are a debatable policy, and they are unusually unpopular with the actual suburban middle-class voters whose schools would be affected by these policies (or who fear that these policies might affect their schools).  How vouchers went from being a slightly oddball, Jack Kemp-esque initiative proposal in the ’90s to the end-all, be-all of education reform on the right is one of those mysteries that someone else will have to solve.