Just in time for the Iowa caucuses, a new study shows that God isn’t actually a Republican. The study, released today in front of the headquarters of The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, God’s chosen lobbyists in Washington, DC, is sure to roil the Republican presidential race.

Among the field of candidates, a former Arkansas governor, Republican Mike Huckabee, has made his relationship with God a reason Iowans should vote for him in his quest for the highest political office in the United States. Enough Iowans have determined that Gov. Huckabee’s relationship with God qualifies him for higher office that he leads in the Iowa polls, even though, as the study notes, God is pretty clear on the point that only He can look into a man’s heart.

The study’s findings may cause Huckabee’s Republican supporters to reevaluate their support, say experts. While an endorsement from God carries a lot of weight with about a quarter of Iowa’s Republican voters, that was when it was assumed He is a Republican.

The polls findings shouldn’t be taken to suggest God is a Democrat, however, cautions the study’s chief author, theology professor Faith de Nos Padres. “God isn’t partisan in the least,” she said at the press conference announcing the study. “In fact,” she said, in what may be the study’s most important finding, “God doesn’t even care who the president of the United States is, let alone what party he or she may belong to. He also doesn’t care who the president of Russia is,” she continued, ” or the prime ministers of Britain or Israel or Iraq, for that matter.”

The study found that attempts to claim God’s support for political ambitions was “anthropomorphizing the diety,” or what the ancients called blasphemy. “Just because we think some bill or political race is extremely important doesn’t mean we can elevate it to the level of the Almighty and assert He feels the same way,” said Prof. de Nos Padres. “That’s just the kind of hubris the Greek gods were always incinerating mortals for.”

Asked whether she thought her study would have an impact on Mike Huckabee’s support in Iowa, Prof. de Nos Padres said it would likely have some, but not as much as Washington pundits might suppose.

“Many Christian evangelicals are already gun shy,” she said, “after their double betrayal by George W. Bush. Karl Rove had Bush talk the talk in 2000 and 2004, and many evangelicals now understand that everything a politician running for office says in public is calculated to win votes. On a spiritual level, it’s just white noise.”

She estimated about half the evangelicals who were taken in by Bush will not be taken in by Huckabee, but the other half “may need another 2×4 across the head once or twice before they get it,” she said. “Soon, perhaps, all Americans will return to the view that it’s unseemly at best for a politician to try to use God to gain votes for their personal earthly political ambitions.”

The study found that God’s milieu isn’t political, which is a generalized form of human relationship. God’s milieu is on a very personal level, i.e., how we treat one another. Loving one’s neighbor as oneself is properly a religious imperative. Putting some guy in political office is religion-neutral. “If Mike Huckabee wants to act appropriately in terms of his relationship with God,” said Prof. de Nos Padres, “he shouldn’t be blathering on about it on national television.”

Instead, the next time he has an argument with his wife, right in the middle of it, when he is most angry, he should stop and tell her he may be wrong, that he loves her very much, and that she is the most precious thing in the world to him. “Now you’ve got God’s attention,” said the professor.

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