The latest long-shot presidential candidate is a Southern Baptist Baby Boomer from Hope, Ark., who served as governor of his home state.
But this isn't Bill Clinton, and he isn't a Democrat. Instead, he's a Republican, an ex-pastor and former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
Mike Huckabee announced Jan. 28 that he has formed a committee to explore the possibility of running for president on the GOP ticket.
He recently completed 10 1/2 years as governor of Arkansas, during which he enjoyed high popularity ratings while working with a Democratic legislature to achieve several policy successes.
His mix of experience, communication skills, affability and policy pragmatism is causing some political pundits to take note of his candidacy.
“Huckabee is the Republican to watch …,” wrote E.J. Dionne in a recent Washington Post column. “Huckabee makes the case that he was as an effective governor who happens to be a serious evangelical, not the other way around.”
Huckabee was born and raised in Hope and graduated from Ouachita Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. After a few years in Christian broadcasting, he served as pastor of two sizeable Arkansas Baptist churches.
In 1989, while pastor in Texarkana, Ark., Huckabee was elected president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. At the time—the height of theological conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention—state Baptist leaders considered Huckabee a moderate. He defeated Ronnie Floyd, who was an insider with the denomination's fundamentalist leadership.
Huckabee entered secular politics as a conservative Republican in 1992 in an unsuccessful bid to defeat longtime Sen. Dale Bumpers. The next year, he won an election to become the state's lieutenant governor. That office catapulted him to the governorship in 1996, after an ethics scandal forced the resignation of the governor. Huckabee was elected to two more terms.
He has embraced the policy positions of most conservative evangelicals on many social issues, like abortion rights and gay rights. But in an interview on Meet the Press, he downplayed his connections to some of the Religious Right's more inflammatory rhetoric.