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<p>Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee addressed claims Wednesday that one of his aides blocked fellow Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz from speaking at a Kentucky rally for Kim Davis on Tuesday.</p> <p>“Look, I invited him to come and meet with Kim Davis. It was our event. We were kind of surprised that he showed up. But you know, once he was there, we invited him to come and meet with her. So I’m not sure what the controversy is,” Mr. Huckabee said on Fox News, Politico reported.</p>

Karen Tumulty's piece on Mike Huckabee today makes abundantly clear that he has little appetite to dive back into presidential politics. There was one line in particular that illustrated why a second run appears increasingly unlikely. Asked how he'd run differently in 2012, the former Arkansas governor told Tumulty: "Money — lots of it. One thing I'm certainly going to gauge over the next few months is, would there be substantial financial support. ... I don't plan to jump in a pool that has no water." Yet even though he knows he'd need more cash this time around he's done...

Huckabee Quietly Exiting (or Ramping up for) 2012 Race? In what could potentially be a huge indication of Huckabee’s future political plans (or lack thereof), Huckabee’s presidential committee Huckabee for President, Inc has filed termination paperwork with the FEC. The report was filed with the FEC on 1/31/11 at the time other political committees were filing their usual year-end reports, and can be viewed here. On that same date, Huckabee’s team filed a regular year-end report for Huck PAC — meaning that Huckabee has made the intentional decision to continue Huck PAC operations while ceasing the operations of Huckabee for...

The clearest sign yet that Mike Huckabee is leaning toward another presidential run emerged Thursday. The former Arkansas Governor plans to visit Iowa in June and participate in the Family Leader’s “Presidential Lecture Series”, according to the group’s CEO Bob Vander Plaats. He disclosed that information to a crowd of 50 in Oskaloosa.

It was a nefarious year for nettlesome nosy-bodies employed by the Nanny State. Here are the top power-grabbers who just can't leave us alone: First lady Michelle Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee. ...... Next came Mrs. O's push for the $5 billion expansion of federal child nutrition programs. As I first reported in February 2010, the legislation was a pet project of the Service Employees International Union, which seeks to swell the ranks of dawn-to-dusk year-round public school food service workers who organize under the progressive activist slogan "serving justice, and serving lunch." In addition to school breakfast and lunch,...

Video of Mike Huckabee on Fox News trying to defend his tax-and-spend record against Club for Growth charges . . . and fails

Video: Mike Huckabee implies that Palin is an "extremist," due to her opposition to the tax bill compromise. Huckabee stated earlier that "What we got here is a (tax) bill that the extremes of both sides hate" When questioned later on whether Sarah Palin was an extremist since she opposed the bill, Huckabee said that Sarah wasn't an 'extremist' per say just occupying an extreme position. He then compares her "extreme position" on the right to that of Rep. Anthony Weiner's (D-NY) extremism on the left. Huck: ".....You've got the far left, and the far right...Anthony Weiner, for example, thinks...

Sarah Palin may have met her political match in Mike Huckabee. Both have been criss-crossing the country on book tours. Both hold degrees in communication. Both hunt and fish. Both use various media to hit their target audiences. But while Palin often generates anger, Huckabee takes the Will Rogers road. He has an aw-shucks demeanor, freely cracking jokes, shaking hands and chatting with the media while Palin shuns reporters. Already road-tested by a 2008 White House run, Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister, may just be the strongest GOP candidate to take on Palin in a primary and...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said he hasn't decided whether he'll run for president, but thinks people should be paying attention to him. "I just don't understand how it is that a person can read these polls day after day and the narrative is constantly everybody but me," Huckabee told Politico. "Whether I do it or not, the fact is that if one looks at the overall body of information that's available, nobody would be in a better position to take it all the way to November." Huckabee also drew a contrast between the attention given to former Alaska Gov....

Politico's Martin and Smith remind the political world not to forget about Mike Huckabee when looking ahead to the 2012 GOP presidential contest. Dial down the deafening Sarah Palin buzz for just a moment: The most consequential decision in the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes could be whether Mike Huckabee decides to run again – and associates say the former Arkansas governor may well take the plunge. If Huckabee gets in, he will unquestionably be a force to be reckoned with in the fight for the nomination. He’d be the undisputed frontrunner in lead-off Iowa, where he won by nine points...

In 2008, Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee emerged from a crowded field of Republican presidential hopefuls to win the Iowa caucuses and become the preferred candidate of social conservatives. Could Huckabee play the dark horse again in 2012? A sampling of opinions as to how Huckabee presence (or lack thereof) will shape the fight for the Republican nomination: •Under The Radar Politico's Jonathan Martin and Ben Smith note Huckabee's position right now is similar to where he was at this point in the 2008 cycle, operating in relative obscurity while boldfaced names like Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Rudy Giuliani gobbled...

Huckabee: “No question, she will be a very, very strong presence and force, if she gets in,” Huckabee told reporters in Des Moines Sunday. “You know, she may run away with it. And that’s one of those things everyone needs to be prepared for"

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee today broadened the assault on the Republican Party establishment — and former Bush adviser Karl Rove in particular — levied recently by Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, blasting the "elitism" and "country club attitude exhibited by Rove and others who dismissed Delaware Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell. "I was very disappointed in some, particularly Karl and others, who were so dismissive of Christine O'Donnell," Huckabee told Aaron Klein on the latter's WABC radio show Sunday. "Unfortunately, there is an elitism within the Republican establishment," Huckabee told Klein. "And it's one of the reasons the Republicans have...

Clemmons wrote a letter to Huckabee, saying he was seeking compassion and mercy: “God Bless You … It is so prayed!” Asked the grounds for his request, Clemmons checked a box for “excessive sentence.” He also checked this box: “My institutional adjustment has been exemplary.” But Clemmons’ adjustment had been just the opposite. The same year he filled out this clemency application, the Arkansas Department of Correction reduced Clemmons’ time in prison to this damning score sheet: “Disciplinaries: 29 Times. Achievements: None.” In May 2000, Huckabee granted Clemmons’ plea for clemency, citing Clemmons’ youth when sentenced. The governor commuted the...

From his Twitter account... "A special thanks to Team Huck, @teamhuckAK and Amy Walker for their hard work to push Joe Miller into the lead!

Former GOP presidential contender and potential 2012 candidate Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that he does not support a repeal of the 14th Amendment -- a part of the Constitution other Republican leaders have called into question recently because it guarantees citizenship for children born in the United States, regardless of their parents' immigration status. Huckabee said in an interview Wednesday that he does not support a repeal, NPR reports. While the former Arkansas governor said, "I'm not for an amnesty program," he added, "You do not punish a child for something the parent did." (snip) Huckabee told NPR that the...

As he has before, Huckabee defends his decision to the New Yorker, saying Clemmons' prison sentence was unjust given what he knew at the time. In Arkansas, Huckabee commuted the sentence of Maurice Clemmons, who went on to shoot four police officers in Washington last year. Given the same information he had then, Huckabee says, he would make the same decision.

After weeks of keeping himself in the headlines and growing more explicit about his intentions to run for president in 2012, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee touted himself as the Republican front-runner, The Hill reports. Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Huckabee attempted to remain elusive about his presidential ambitions, but showed he is closely watching his poll numbers. "I end up leading a lot of the polls," Huckabee said. "I'm the Republican that clearly at this point does better against Obama than any other Republican." About his presidential run, Huckabee added: "I haven't closed the door. I think that would...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee continued to insist on Sunday that he won’t make a decision on another presidential run until after this fall's midterm elections. “I haven’t closed the door. I think that would be foolish on my part, especially when poll after poll shows that there is strong sentiment out there. I end up leading a lot of the polls. I’m the Republican that clearly, at this point, does better against Obama than any other Republican,” said Huckabee, a Fox News contributor, on "Fox News Sunday."

Like it or not, the 2012 presidential campaign season is already underway. Right now, we're in the nascent stage of the cycle where folks are asking: Will he/she run? A new 8,300-word New Yorker profile asks that question of Mike Huckabee. Among the nuggets in the piece (some of which we had already heard): -- Huckabee is now registered to vote in Florida, not his native Arkansas -- He has gained weight since his '08 campaign days, though he doesn't weigh the 300-odd pounds he once weighed -- Former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt says some VERY nice things about...