politicians need to keep their religious views out of their policies

I understand your argument, and in many ways appreciate it, but I think you're overlooking a few key factors. I wholeheartedly agree with your appraisal of Mike Huckabee; as an atheist and scientist, I am infuriated when I hear about religious lunatics like him trying to wage war on scientific study. However, I respect his policymaking—I just disagree with the premises on which they're based. Let me begin with one your statements: "I feel it is [politicians'] duty to ignore their personal views in favor of what is best for the country." Unfortunately, some things aren't so black-and-white. We don't always know what's best for our country—we all have opinions, but it's hard to convert these into indisputable facts. As an atheist who has spent the majority of his life studying physical sciences, I, of course, firmly believe that evolution should be taught in schools and that "creationism" is a threat to the next generation's ability to grasp even the simplest concepts of biology. As you well know, however, Mike Huckabee would respectfully disagree with my point of view. Should Huckabee be elected to the presidency in 2016, one could safely assume that he was voted into office because the majority of voters identified with the beliefs and ideas expressed in his campaign. Therefore, he should have every right to make policies accordingly—including a war on public education, a ban on homosexual marriage, and a federal Chick-Fil-A holiday. Would these policies be best for our country? Of course not. You and I would likely scream in outrage. But we live in a democracy, in which people are allowed to live under the rules created for and by themselves. Judgement is all about viewpoint. Of course, there are objective truths and falsehoods, but unfortunately that doesn't guarantee that all people will recognize them. If all policymaking came down only to what is right and wrong for our country, we wouldn't have a democracy—we'd have a dictatorship run by a supercomputer capable of quantitatively determining the best course for our nation. Instead, we have a democracy, which is run by imperfect humans who make mistakes and irrational judgements. It's not perfect, but it's what we've got. We elect leaders into office when we identify with them; when we see that their IDEAS for what is best for our country are similar to ours. If Mike Huckabee runs on a platform of turning our country into a christian-right propaganda machine, and the electorate agrees with his message, then they are essentially signaling to him that they trust his judgement on policy matters based on the personal views he has expressed. If we shouldn't elect candidates into office based on their personal beliefs, what should our votes be based on? In such a world, it wouldn't matter whether we were voting for Democrats or Republicans; we could just throw any old puppet into office and have them create policies based on the results of the latest public opinion polls. This is a representative democracy; we elect people who have personal views that accurately represent our own. I would vote for Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins to represent me; one of my best friends would likely literally try to vote for Jesus as a write-in candidate. As you said, we live in a very diverse country—this makes it impossible for all of our views to be represented. Therefore, voters have to compromise. President Obama's opinions aren't identical to mine. Until very recently, his official opinion on gay marriage was that his faith told him it was an "abomination." He's not a perfect representative for me. But I accept our differences, and I will gladly vote for him in November because he is a better representative than Mitt Romney would be.