Huckabee Claims He Won't Scare Moderates

Arkansas Republican Governor Mike Huckabee says if he runs for president he won't "scare the living daylights" out of independents and moderate Democrats:

"I think I would appeal to true conservatives for whom conservatism doesn't mean they're angry at everybody," Huckabee said in an interview with The Associated Press. "My brand of conservatism is not an angry, hostile brand. It's one that says `conservative' means we want to conserve the best of our culture, society, principles and values and pass them on."

[. . .]

"I would be the kind of Republican who doesn't scare the living daylights out of people who are in the center or slightly to the left," he said.

Huckabee has been governor of Democratic-leaning Arkansas for10 1/2 years. He couldn't to seek re-election because of term limits.

Huckabee has not said when he'll announce his decision on whether to run for president. He dismisses the idea that he needs to announce early next year.

Hotline compares Huckabee to another man from Hope, former President Bill Clinton:

Now instead of a young, shaggy-haired, Ivy League, anti-war liberal whose greatest claim to fame was running Texas for McGovern in '72, imagine a candidate who graduated from an in-state Baptist college, was an ordained Baptist minister and had taken a turn running the state's Baptist Convention. One is recalled as a unifying force to Baptist Arkansans. One who hosted a religious-oriented TV show. The political connections - the familiarity - were instantaneous for Huckabee. But, unlike Clinton, he was not somebody who dreamt and angled his whole life to be in a place from where he could run for president.

I think Huckabee's experience as Baptist minister and leadership of the Arkansas Baptist Convention will scare the living daylights out of a lot of moderates of both parties.

Cross-posted from California Yankee.