Former Arkansas Governor and potential Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee recently spent some time with the New Yorker's Ariel Levy and spoke about his personal beliefs and political aspirations.
Huckabee's personal faith -- he was a Baptist minister before entering politics -- was well defined in his 2008 presidential campaign, and his strong, Evangelical pro-Israel and anti-gay rights positions have since attracted attention to the now-Fox News host.
As Levy points out, Huckabee, though perhaps hesitant to run for President again in 2012 -- Brenda Turner, his former chief of staff, told Levy that Huckabee would probably only run if "the Lord was calling him," and that this didn't yet look evident -- serves as a powerful counter to another, potentially problematic Republican frontrunner: Sarah Palin.
In some ways, Huckabee seems like a promising candidate for 2012: a squeaky-clean family man and bona-fide Christian who loves to talk. His communication is folksy but fluid; he never seems flummoxed, like George W. Bush, or befuddled, like John McCain, or unprepared, like Sarah Palin. "If we're running a race against their most articulate guy," Steve Schmidt, John McCain's former campaign manager, told me, referring to President Obama, "we should put our most articulate guy. Huckabee's that guy." Schmidt, who has traded barbs with Palin since the election, said, "There's no one who really provides a better contrast to Sarah Palin, showing her as an entertainer instead of a serious thinker--and there's not enough oxygen for both of them."
Here are some more gems from Levy's profile in the New Yorker.
- On wearing a yarmulke: "I think what I should do is convert," Huckabee said. "This covers my bald spot completely."
Read the entire article here.