Mike Huckabee in Iowa: Spoiler Alert?

DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 3, 2007 — -- Day one as No. 1: it's what presidential contenders dream of. And today former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had his first real taste of it, in Iowa.

The elevators that couldn't move because so many people wanted to jam in next to him. … The lunchtime appearance at a Des Moines insurance firm where there were not enough of seats. … The hour of talk radio where the questions being asked were no longer variations of: "Seems nice, but is he electable."

"How will winning Iowa make Mike Huckabee a spoiler?" asked one caller.

"People are really starting to pay attention," said Huckabee. "That's what we hoped for all along. Like a marathon, don't give up in those early miles when you see people passing you. Because it's about finishing not starting. That's what it takes to do this."

Something seemed to click here for Huckabee, even in the past few days. There was his performance in the last debate, and new polls suggesting he could win. Something certainly clicked for one Mitt Romney supporter … make that former supporter.

"I was on the Mitt Romney bandwagon," said Cynthia Kammeier, who said she's "absolutely" switched sides. "I've switched in the last two weeks."

'Welcome to the Big League'

The ultimate compliment might be the "welcome-to-the-big-league" attacks Huckabee's ideas are now drawing — finally — from the other contenders in the race who had previously mostly ignored him.

For example, Rudy Giuliani had this to say about Huckabee's plan to scrap the Internal Revenue Service in favor of a sales tax on everything:

"Why waste our time trying to do this if we can't actually accomplish it?" Giuliani said at a campaign event today in Greensboro, N.C. "I try to put my time into things that we can actually accomplish."

Romney joined in on the tax attack, criticizing Huckabee's spending to a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

"Gov. Huckabee was governor and talks about his desire to rein in spending, but as governor he took spending from just over $6 billion to $16 billion," Romney said. "And he financed that by raising taxes time and again."

Huckabee so far has done very little counterattacking. He hasn't aired a single negative ad thus far and doesn't believe they are effective. He firmly believes that others go negative because they have no ideas.

Huckabee: More Scrutiny for Christianity Than Mormonism

Though Romney has been faced with tough questions regarding his Mormonism — so much so that he plans to give a speech addressing his religion this week — Huckabee believes that his faith has been called into question even more than Romney's.

"I don't think Mitt's been called upon to talk about his faith nearly as much as I have about mine," the former minister said. "I keep hearing about you know, 'Mitt's faith, Mitt's faith.' I'm the one that they always ask the religious questions to on the debates. I'm the one that in every interview someone says, 'OK let's talk about your belief.' My faith has been put through a great deal more scrutiny than anybody else, including Mitt Romney's."

While Huckabee is proud of his evangelical Christian background, he dismisses the idea that he is at a political advantage over Romney because of it. "I don't think his being Mormon is a disqualifier for being president. It's not an issue for me."

'Because of These Prayers'

He does, however, believe that faith has had a lot to do with his recent success. In a speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, Huckabee said his recent surge in the polls was partly attributed to "divine providence."

Elaborating, he said, "I felt like that because of these prayers, our little had become much. It was like the two fish and the five loaves. And I don't have an explanation for that, other than what we have had people have prayed for it to be effective, and it has been."

Despite his strong religious views, he doesn't believe the government should force them on citizens.

"It's so very important that we never would use the forces of government to impose anybody's faith on another person. That really would be a most inappropriate use of government and the greatest way in which we water down or completely adulterize true faith," he said.

Huckabee has said before that he doesn't believe in evolution and also believes that kids should be taught intelligent design in addition to evolution. But he thinks it is ultimately up to the states to decide what to teach their kids about the origins of life.

"The president shouldn't get into that. That's not a presidential issue. It's a state issue, because education is a state, not a federal issue."

'Two Words: Chuck Norris'

Over the past few weeks, Huckabee's endorsements have not only come from evangelical Christians. Recently, Chuck Norris, the tough guy TV star, backed the candidate in a TV ad, in which a straight-face Huckabee begins by saying, "My plan to secure the border? Two words: Chuck Norris."

"We did it for two reasons: one, because I think politics ought to keep some fun in the process," said Huckabee. "People take themselves way too seriously. Take the issues seriously, but we need to remember that none of us are running to be god, we're running to be president, which means you are a servant of the people, not the lord of the people."

Huckabee admits however that some people might not get the joke and that the ad, which highlights the candidate's tough stance on illegal information, was a risk.

"Oh yeah, there's a big risk there," he said. "We knew we were taking it. We had two goals: We wanted to drive a record level of first-time visitors to our Web site. And secondly, we wanted people to see that there's a campaign that is gonna take on the issues but is gonna do it in a way that will be unlike anything you've ever seen. We accomplished both."

While relishing in his campaign's new momentum, Huckabee admits that his front-runner status in Iowa "defies explanation in the conventional wisdom of politics." That's why he is certainly not taking his position for granted.

Talking about his rise in the polls, Huckabee said, "It's one of those things that kind of flies under the radar screen because nobody really understands where it's coming from, including me. But we're delighted with the results."