Michael Dale "Mike" Huckabee (born August 24, 1955) is a former governor of the U.S. state of Arkansas, having served from 1996 to 2007. He was the third Republican governor of the state since Reconstruction and was the highest rated political figure in Arkansas for parts of his tenure. He officially announced his candidacy for the 2008 United States presidential election on January 28, 2007, and he has been running a national campaign since then. Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist minister. He is well known for losing 110 pounds in a very short time and advocating a healthy lifestyle.

Huckabee was born in Hope, Arkansas, to Mae Elder and Dorsey W. Huckabee. His father worked as a fireman and a mechanic and his mother worked as a clerk in a gas company. He has one sister who is a middle school teacher. He was elected Governor of Arkansas Boys State in 1972 and is a Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Alumnus. He was president of Hope High School in 1973. He married Janet McCain on May 25, 1974. He graduated magna cum laude from Ouachita Baptist University, completing his bachelors degree in 2½ years before attending Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

In Huckabee's first political race, he lost to incumbent U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers (D) in 1992, receiving 40 percent of the vote. That same election saw Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton ascend to the Presidency. This made Lieutenant Governor Jim Guy Tucker the new Governor. Huckabee narrowly won a special election for lieutenant governor over Nate Coulter, who had been Dale Bumpers campaign manager the previous year, on July 27, 1993. He then became only the second Republican since Reconstruction to have served as Arkansas lieutenant governor, the first being Maurice L. Britt from 1967 to 1971. Huckabee was re-elected to a full term as lieutenant governor in 1994 beating Charlie Cole Chaffin 59-41. Dick Morris, who had previously worked for Bill Clinton, advised Huckabee on his races in 1993 and 1994. Huckabee commented that Morris was a "personal friend". A newspaper article reported on Huckabee's 1993 win: "Morris said the mistake Republicans always make is that they are too much of a country club set. What we wanted to do was run a progressive campaign that would appeal to all Arkansans.'" Morris elaborated, "So we opened the campaign with ads that characterized Mike as more of a moderate whose values were the same as those of other Arkansans." In 1996, Huckabee ran for US Senate again and won the Republican nomination. He quit the US Senate race in order to become Governor. In November 1998, Huckabee was elected to a full four-year term. He defeated Jonesboro attorney Bill Bristow, a Democrat, in the general election. Source

Mike and Janet Huckabee

Janet Huckabee

Sarah Huckabee, David Huckabee, John Mark Huckabee, and Jet!

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National Journal's Linda Douglass sat down with Janet Huckabee for "National Journal On Air." This is a transcript of their conversation. Linda Douglass: I want to welcome Janet Huckabee. She is the wife of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who has been surging in all of the polls. Welcome, Mrs. Huckabee. Janet Huckabee: Thank you. Douglass: Well, speaking of surging in the polls, what has changed for you now as you see your husband suddenly shooting up in polls in Iowa and also in national polls? What's changed? Huckabee: Well, I think really the only thing that's changed for us is that it's a lot more exciting. Things are pumping, so to speak, and the amount of people that come to our events is a lot different than it was when we started 11 months ago. We're still working very hard, we still take nothing for granted, and we just keep out there meeting one person at a time...[read the National Journal article]

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Just one month ago, Mitt Romney's supporters thought that they had Iowa fairly well in hand. But there was Mr. Romney last week, telling several hundred people at a high school cafeteria in Marion that he was the underdog and pleading for their help to keep him from being derailed at the caucuses by the rise of Mike Huckabee...[read the NYTimes article]

(AP) Mike Huckabee's first day as Arkansas governor is remembered most for the Four Hour Crisis. Five minutes before Huckabee was to be sworn in, the disgraced outgoing governor, Jim Guy Tucker, tried to wriggle out of his promise to resign. For the next few hours, the state flirted with a constitutional crisis as Lt. Gov. Huckabee and Tucker, the governor who had been convicted of two felonies in the Whitewater investigation, jockeyed for control, and the people of Arkansas watched in horror. Huckabee, a Republican, stood tough; he went on statewide television and threatened to call a special legislative session to have the Democratic governor impeached. Behind the scenes, he worked with Democratic legislators to coax Tucker to quit. An anxious afternoon ended when Tucker scribbled a note of resignation, salve for what Huckabee had described as an "open, oozing sore."...[read the CBS News article]

CONCORD, N.H. -- Mike Huckabee's low-budget, fast-moving campaign brought on some needed organizational muscle today in the form of Ed Rollins, the veteran political strategist for candidates including Ronald Reagan -- to whom he today compared his new client for his ability to communicate and connect with voters....[read the Washington Post article]

Mike Huckabee is far removed from where he stood this summer: in single digits in Iowa polls and barely registering nationally. Now, less than a month before the caucuses, he leads in Iowa and is in second place in many national polls. A Baptist minister, Huckabee has had his rise credited to his popularity with social conservatives. At home in Little Rock last week, Huckabee spoke by phone with NEWSWEEK's Holly Bailey about the intense focus on his faith—and why he wishes he could talk about something else...[read the Newsweek article]

JOHNSTON, Iowa - Newly crowned Iowa frontrunner Mike Huckabee escaped the last presidential debate before the Jan. 3 vote here seemingly without a scratch Wednesday while the man he's threatening to overtake nationally, Rudy Giuliani, was on the defensive over security for trips to see his then-girlfriend...[read the Newsday article]

In Iowa last week, Mike Huckabee's wife, Janet Huckabee, seemed docile and shy, a model of marital devotion. She stood in the shadows behind her husband as he delivered speeches. When he worked the room afterward, she kept close, never straying more than a few feet. She greeted voters with a hushed and honeyed "Thank y'all for coming out." At a dinner with reporters one night, she kept quiet and tended to her husband, ordering him iced tea and clam chowder and nudging him when it was time to leave...[read the Newsweek article]

DALLAS, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said on Monday that his surging popularity was drawing attacks from opponents and money from supporters as new polls released on Monday showed him in a virtual tie nationally with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The folksy former Arkansas governor has vaulted from single-digit figures just a few short weeks ago to the lead spot in opinion polls in the crucial state of Iowa...[read the Reuters article]

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) -- Mike Huckabee has capitalized on his Iowa surge and roared to the front of the Republican pack in South Carolina, largely on the strength of social conservatives frustrated with the crop of candidates. "We've been on the stove simmering for about 11 months," Huckabee said at a Saturday rally in Greenville. "Somehow in the last two weeks, the lid blew off and the pot started boiling." A month ago, Huckabee was fifth in South Carolina polls. Now, according to a new Mason-Dixon poll conducted in the state, Huckabee comes in at 20 percent, putting him in first place with a narrow lead over former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has 17 percent...[read the CNN News article]

Entering a packed auditorium, Mike Huckabee was barely visible inside the white-hot huddle of news cameras, boom mikes and popping strobes. A month before Iowa's first-in-the-nation Jan. 3 presidential caucuses, the former Arkansas governor was even drawing European reporters sniffing for the next Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton. "It's probably a little distracting for you," he told a crowd of 400 insurance workers. "But it is kind of nice." A few months ago, Huckabee was a campaign afterthought, a friendly guy with the funny-sounding name. Today he's the upstart who could transform former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney into another Phil Gramm or Steve Forbes - ghosts of caucuses past who found that big money can't necessarily win over Iowa...[read the Kansascity.com article]

Mike Huckabee's surging campaign has created a three-way toss-up in Michigan's Republican Primary. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds Huckabee earning 21% of the vote. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the son of a former Michigan Governor, attracts 20% support while former New York City Mayor is the top choice for 19% of Likely Republican Primary Voters...[read the Rasmussen article]

Mike Huckabee may be soaring in the polls, but is it for real, and can he win the Republican presidential nomination? "Absolutely," Newt Gingrich told Alan Colmes. Interviewed last night on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," Gingrich said Huckabee "is doing an amazing job. The more people watch him, the more they believe in him. 'He's very comfortable with himself' is the phrase I hear most often."...[read the NewsMax article]

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, unaccustomed to the national spotlight, is squirming under the glare. With his bare-bones campaign, the former Arkansas governor has been considered an also-ran until recently, when he surged to a share of the lead in Iowa GOP surveys. Now he is in second place nationally among Republicans, behind Rudy Giuliani, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll on Friday...[read the Newsweek article]

The Rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll released Wednesday showed the former Arkansas governor with 20 percent, compared with Rudy Giuliani at 17 percent. Even though Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney have played strong in early voting states like Iowa, Giuliani has led the field in practically every national poll since the race began. Click here to see the Rasmussen tracking poll.

The Rasmussen poll, an automated survey obtained through nightly phone interviews that is reported on a four-day rolling basis, showed Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain each with 13 percent. The poll of likely Republican primary voters showed former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who once held a strong second-place position, with 10 percent...[read the FOX News article]

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who in the past few weeks has gone from long shot to leading some polls in Iowa, today fought back against charges he acted improperly in the case of Wayne DuMond, a convicted rapist who was paroled during Huckabee's time as governor of Arkansas. In an interview today on CBS News' The Early Show, Huckabee denied wrongdoing and deflected blame for the case to his predecessors Jim Guy Tucker and Bill Clinton...[read the CBS News article]

Watch Mike Huckabee's YouTube video response to the Wayne Dumond story.

In August 1980, as the conservative Christian movement was first transforming American politics, Ronald Reagan stood before a Dallas stadium full of 15,000 foot-stomping, hand-clapping evangelicals and pledged his fealty to the Bible. "All the complex and horrendous questions confronting us at home and worldwide have their answer in that single book," said Mr. Reagan, the Republican presidential nominee...[read the New York Times article]

Huckabee on Tuesday sidestepped the question about what he thinks of the opinion held by some Christian evangelicals that Mormonism is a cult. "I am just not going to go into evaluating other people's doctrines and faiths. I think that is absolutely not a role for a president," the former Arkansas governor said.

Huckabee said that if he were running to be "president of a theological school," then his views on Mormonism would be relevant — "but to be the president of the United States I don't know that that is going to be the most important issue that I will be facing when I am sworn in."...[read the FOX News article]

Mitt Romney's Response: No Religious Test for President Romney: `Moral Convictions,' Not Faith, Binds Him to All Americans

Republican Mitt Romney, confronting voters' skepticism about his Mormon faith, declared Thursday that as president he would "serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause," and said calls for him to explain and justify his religious beliefs go against the profound wishes of the nation's founders. At the same time, he decried those who would remove from public life "any acknowledgment of God," and he said that "during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places."...[read the ABC News article]

WASHINGTON — Mike Huckabee marveled at being in the same sound studio at XM Satellite Radio headquarters where Paul McCartney and B.B. King had performed in the nation's capital. "I'd rather listen to them than me," the former Republican governor of Arkansas admitted to the high school kids who had come to question him on XM's POTUS '08 program examining presidential candidates...[read the Statesman article]

DES MOINES -- Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee eyed the hundreds of supporters spilling out of his newly expanded Iowa headquarters, thronging him for autographs, grabbing campaign signs and volunteering for his cause before Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses. The sight was quite a contrast to his summer visits to pizzerias around the state, when the former Arkansas governor said he was "thrilled" if 25 people