Mike Huckabee, on a wing and a prayer

In a Salon interview, the long-shot GOP candidate reveals his convictions about gay marriage, wonders about Mitt Romney's faith, and fires back at Fred Thompson.

By Michael Scherer

Read more: Religion, Politics, evangelicals, Iowa, Arkansas, News, Gay Marriage, Mike Huckabee, Michael Scherer, 2008 election, Mitt Romney

Photo: AP/Charlie Neibergall

Mike Huckabee speaks during a meet and greet Aug. 29, 2007, in Pella, Iowa.

Nov. 9, 2007 | VINTON, Iowa -- Unlike in junior high, it's often a good sign in presidential politics when people say nasty things about you. It means you are threatening. It means others fear you. It means you might just win something.

So, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the dark horse in the Republican race, has not been sweating the recent barrage of attacks against him. In recent weeks, Mitt Romney has accused Huckabee of supporting tuition assistance for the children of illegal immigrants. (Gasp!) Fred Thompson called him "one of the highest taxing governors" in the nation. (Zing!) A Wall Street Journal editorialist called Huckabee a waffling conservative. (Ka-pow!) Conservative doyenne Phyllis Schlafly blamed him for wrecking the Republican Party in Arkansas. (Wham-o!) One Thompson supporter really went for the jugular, evoking the specter of Bubba: "I certainly cannot support another individual from Hope, Arkansas," announced retired Brig. Gen. James Livingston before a Thompson event on Tuesday in Columbia, S.C.

Why all the sudden attention? With a scant staff and no television advertisements, Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor, has moved into second place in the Iowa caucus polls, and he is inching up on big spender Romney in the still highly speculative national polls. He has earned consistent praise for his performance in debates, and regularly overperforms in straw poll contests. "He is coming on like gangbusters," says David Woodard, a South Carolina political scientist and Republican political consultant.

So when Huckabee arrived in Iowa Wednesday for a four-stop tour of the eastern cornfields, he was greeted by the full weight of the national press: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the McClatchy News Service and a half dozen others. In January, when Huckabee launched his campaign, only a couple of local reporters were around to ask questions. Now his daughter Sarah, who serves as a top aide on the road, has to call "last question" in press scrums so her dad can stay on schedule.

None of this means that Huckabee has yet earned a place in the chaotic top tier of the Republican field. Though he claims record money hauls in recent weeks, he has yet to get his fundraising machine up to speed. And his staff operation, now based largely in Iowa, is less well equipped to handle the rest of the primary calendar. But Huckabee remains a clear optimist. "At this point in 1979, Ronald Reagan's campaign was flat broke. Not that they were short on money -- they had no money," Huckabee told the journalistic mob during a morning tour of a metal factory in Cedar Falls.

The strategy of the Huckabee campaign now looks like this: Start airing television ads, which have already been shot, in Iowa within the next month, which can be complemented by an expanding ground staff to turn out supporters. If he can come in a surprise first or a strong second in Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses, he may be able to do well in New Hampshire, which would generate a torrent of fundraising and enough momentum to carry him through to the evangelical-rich South Carolina, where a Southern Baptist pastor with a minimal operation just might pull off an electoral coup.

"I think one of the things that might happen," Huckabee told reporters, "is that we could end up being able to be the nominee, not because of the work of the people who normally would make this happen, but by a whole new generation of voters that are disgusted with the old way. And frankly, nothing, I think, could be better for America than for that to happen."

But America still has a lot to learn about Huckabee. Many of his hard-line positions on social issues, for instance, are not widely known.

On Wednesday night, after the final event at a community college here, Huckabee sat down for an interview with Salon in a back classroom for about 20 minutes. Our conversation ranged from his determination to make abortion illegal for all Americans to his hesitation to explain his views of Romney's Mormon faith. He made clear his opposition to gay couples gaining rights even similar to those of straight couples, effectively reversing comments he made last year to the Concord Monitor supporting civil unions, which he maintains have been misinterpreted. And he fired back at Thompson, comparing the former Tennessee senator's federalist stand on abortion to slavery before the Civil War.

Additional reporting from South Carolina by Walter Shapiro. The following transcript has been edited slightly for length.

For the first time in the last few weeks, the other big candidates are coming after you -- Romney coming after you about immigration, Thompson coming after you about not being a real conservative.

With the Writers Guild on strike, I mean it's obvious that Thompson is in need of some better lines. The amazing thing is some of these attacks, and I have to be flattered by them. I mean, what else can you say? It's an indication that we really are threatening the position that people have, and they see us coming up around the bend.

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