It’s rude to say it. But I’m going to say it anyway. The Republican candidates for president in 2008 have a thinking problem.

If you need a reason to vote progressive in 2008, consider what the conservative alternative offers. In their first presidential campaign debate, Republican party candidates were asked whether they believed in evolution. Not one, not two, but three presidential candidates failed to raise their hands. Republican Senator Sam Brownback, Republican Representative Tom Tancredo and Republican Governor Mike Huckabee each proclaimed a lack of belief in evolution.

There are so many pieces of evidence that have been carefully assembled in support of evolution that we should be worried about one of three thinking problems among presidential candidates who say they don’t believe in evolution:

1) Ignorance. Perhaps these candidates for president are declaring their beliefs about the universe in front of a national audience without really having looked into the subject first. That’s not practicing safe politics.

2) Failure to understand. There are a lot of pretty accessible readings in evolution that lay out the case very well. If despite this these presidential candidates just don’t get it, what other complicated matters in governance will go right over their pretty little heads?

3) Pandering. Perhaps Huckabee, Brownback and Tancredo really do believe in evolution, but they’re lying because they know that some parts of the population will support them for repudiating it. We’ve had more than six years of a president who is willing to look reality in the face and spit in it. We can’t afford four more.

Ignorance. Failure of understanding. Pandering. We can’t take this conservative presidency any longer.