Mike Huckabee set to announce presidential run Tuesday

Washington Post ^ | 05/05/2015 | By Karen Tumulty

[SeekAndFind]

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is slated to announce Tuesday that he will make a second bid for the Republican nomination.

The challenges are formidable for the man who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses. In that earlier race, Huckabee, 59, a former Baptist preacher, struggled to expand his reach beyond evangelical voters, and ran out of money in subsequent contests.

Huckabee is a gifted communicator. Polls have consistently shown that he has relatively high name recognition and popularity among Republicans. Early this year, he quit his television show on Fox News, so that he could more deeply explore the possibility of another run.

This time, his challenge will be finding a way to break through in a field that is likely to include a dozen or more credible, well-financed contenders. Among them are relatively fresh faces, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who are challenging him for the financial and political support of conservative Christians.

On the stump, he has pointed to his Arkansas history as evidence that he has what it takes to run against Hillary Rodham Clinton, the expected Democratic nominee.

Indeed, Huckabee's career has been intertwined with that of the Clinton family for more than two decades.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

I will continue to attribute his decision to ego and vanity (common to most politicians) and try to avoid conspiracy theories.

[Calpublican]

Not a credible candidate.

[PhilCollins]

I don’t plan to vote for Huckabee, in the primary, but it’s unlikely that Cruz or Rubio will win. Only one Republican (Harding) was elected president while he was a U.S. senator.