Sure, November 2008 is nearly two years away, but it’s apparently never too early to declare one’s intention to run for president, and thus it’s never too early to get to know the people who might be the next leader of the free world. This month we’ll be taking a brief look at them.

Mike Huckabee

Party: Republican

Age: 52

Status: Undeclared

www.hopeforamericapac.org

Is the nation ready for another “Boy from Hope,” this one a Republican? Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee seems to think so (or at least his supporters do). Huckabee is one of those “widely mentioned” potential presidential candidates whose intentions are still unclear, but who nevertheless has a slick web site.

Mike Huckabee was born in 1955 in Hope, Arkansas, the hometown of another famous former Arkansas governor: Bill Clinton. Huckabee went to college at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas, graduating in 2 years, and then went on to train for a career in the ministry at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas. His pre-politics resume includes a brief stint as director of communications for evangelist James Robinson and six years as minister at Beech Street Baptist Church in Texarkana (where he started a religious TV station and was elected President of the Arkansas Baptist Convention).

Huckabee made a failed bid for the Senate in 1992 but the next year won a race to become lieutenant governor of Arkansas. When the state’s then-governor, Jim Tucker, resigned in 1996 after a felony conviction associated with the Whitewater investigation, Huckabee assumed the governorship. He was reelected to the governorship twice, serving as long as possible within term limits. (One hilarious scandal: Huckabee was criticized, during his governorship, for living in a triple wide trailer with his wife, Janet McCain, while the governor’s mansion was being renovated. People thought this played to common stereotypes of rural Arkansas.)

An avid hunter, Huckabee led a campaign to institute a state constitutional amendment to dedicate one eighth of the state’s sales tax to the Arkansas state park system. He also focused on health care (channeling the state’s tobacco tax revenue directly into health care) and education (failing in a controversial bid to consolidate small school districts in order to help them overcome funding issues). Huckabee received attention toward the end of his first term for several high-profile pardons and commuted sentences, including that of Wayne Dumond, a convicted rapist who sexually assaulted and murdered a Missouri woman after he was released.

After being Diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in 2004, Huckabee went on a regime of diet and exercise and lost 110 pounds. He has since run in several marathons, including the 2006 New York City Marathon. This personal transformation became the grist for his book, Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork. (His other books are: Character is the Issue, Kids Who Kill, and Living Beyond Your Lifetime.)

On evolution, Huckabee has said: “I do not necessarily buy into the traditional Darwinian theory, personally.” He thinks students should be exposed to creationist thought in school. He says his Baptist faith has “everything to do with my politics.” He’s therefore against gay marriage, pro-life, and for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Huckabee has supported President Bush’s call for a guest-worker program that would grant legal status to illegal aliens. He supported the Iraq invasion and opposes a withdrawal timetable. And he wants to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent.

Informed by his own experience with diabetes, Huckabee also spends a lot of time preaching that exercise and healthy eating are a way counter obesity and attendant diseases — and a good way to counter the nation’s rising health care costs.

He plays guitar in a band called Capitol Offense.

(With help from super-star intern Sage Van Wing)

Previously: John Edwards, John McCain, Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Barack Obama, Sam Brownback, Christopher J. Dodd, Newt Gingrich, and Dennis Kucinich.