Huckabee spent yesterday in Iowa kicking off his book tour. Having won Iowa solidly last time he's clearly the front-runner for 2012.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20081121/NEWS09/811210374/1001/NEWS
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee insisted Thursday that returning to Iowa was simply the appropriate way to begin a national tour to promote a book that discusses lessons of his bid for president.
Still, the winner of Iowa's 2008 Republican presidential caucuses made time to meet with some of his campaign's supporters.
"I got a lot of votes here. I got a lot of support here. I won this state. It makes a whole lot of sense that we would naturally come here during the book tour, especially at the beginning," he said in a Des Moines Register interview.
He brushed off talk of a 2012 run, even as he motored through the state scheduled to host the party's leadoff caucuses. "I have the option open to me, but it's not something I'm honestly thinking about," he said.
Instead, the folksy former governor brought to Iowa a prescription for the national Republican Party, which he said has wandered from its founding principles.
"There is no such thing as fiscal conservativism without social conservativism," Huckabee said. "We really should be governing by a moral code that we live by, which can be summed up in the phrase: Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you."
Governing by that principle would lead to a more humane society, with lower crime and poverty rates, creating less demand on government spending, he said.
Huckabee also assailed Republicans who supported the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in October, as betraying the party's tradition of supporting personal responsibility.
"Part of what has to happen is that Republicans get back to not just espousing principles, but governing by them," he said. "You lose any authenticity, any credibility, when you say one thing and do another."
Huckabee's visit came just 16 days after the end of the long 2008 campaign, much of which was waged in Iowa. That did not stop him from attracting good-sized crowds to his events Thursday.
Huckabee drew more than 600 to his book-signing in Cedar Rapids and even more to one in the Des Moines area.
At Sam's Club in Windsor Heights, the line snaked through the aisles, ending at a podium where the smiling Southerner posed for quick snapshots and scrawled his name in blue ink.
The line moved quickly, although it slowed at times. Like when Fred and Barb Taylor of Waukee reminded Huckabee about the fundraiser they held for him at their house a year ago.
Likewise, Nancy Bell of West Des Moines earned a hug when she said she helped him to a second-place finish at the 2007 Ames straw poll.
The Taylors and Bell said they hope Huckabee runs again, as did a woman who held a sign that said, "Huck in 2012." Behind Huckabee's podium perched a sign that read, "Iowa likes Mike."
