Mike Huckabee

Michael Dale Huckabee (, born August 24, 1955) is an American political commentator, Baptist minister, and former politician who served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007.

Huckabee was born on August 24, 1955, in Hope, Arkansas, the son of Dorsey Wiles Huckabee (1923–1996) and his wife Mae (Elder) Huckabee (1925–1999), conservative Southern Democrats.

Huckabee is of English, German, and Scots-Irish ancestry, with roots in America dating to the Colonial Era.

He has cited his working-class upbringing as the reason for his political views; his father worked as a fireman and mechanic, and his mother worked as a clerk at a gas company.

His first job, when he was 14, was at a radio station, where he read the news and weather.

Huckabee became the second Republican since Reconstruction to serve as Arkansas lieutenant governor, the first having been Maurice Britt from 1967 to 1971.

In his autobiography From Hope to Higher Ground, Huckabee recalled the chilly reception that he received from the Arkansas Democratic establishment on his election as lieutenant governor: "The doors to my office were spitefully nailed shut from the inside, office furniture and equipment were removed, and the budget spent down to almost nothing prior to our arriving. After fifty-nine days of public outcry, the doors were finally opened for me to occupy the actual office I had been elected to hold two months earlier."

He was student council vice president at Hope High School during the 1971–1972 school year.

He was elected governor of Arkansas by his chapter of the American Legion-sponsored Boys State program in 1972.

He was student council president at Hope High School during the 1972–1973 school year.

He has one sister, Pat Harris, a middle school teacher.

He entered the ministry in 1972 at Garrett Memorial Baptist Church in Hope.

Huckabee married Janet McCain on May 25, 1974.

He graduated from Ouachita Baptist University on May 8, 1978, completing his bachelor's degree in religion before attending Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

He dropped out of the seminary after one year in order to take a job in Christian broadcasting.

At age 21, Huckabee was a staffer for televangelist James Robison.

Robison commented, "His convictions shape his character and his character will shape his policies. His whole life has been shaped by moral absolutes."

Prior to his political career, he served as pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, from 1980 to 1986, and the Beech Street First Baptist Church in Texarkana, from 1986 to 1992.

Huckabee started 24-hour television stations in both Pine Bluff and Texarkana, where he produced documentaries and hosted a program called Positive Alternatives.

He encouraged the all-white Immanuel Baptist Church to accept black members in the mid-1980s.

Years later, he wrote about the insights he gained as a minister:

"My experience dealing every day with real people who were genuinely affected by policies created by government gave me a deep understanding of the fragility of the human spirit and vulnerability of so many families who struggled from week to week. I was in the ICU at 2 a.m. with families faced with the decision to disconnect a respirator on their loved one; I counseled fifteen-year-old pregnant girls who were afraid to tell their parents about their condition; I spent hours hearing the grief of women who had been physically and emotionally clobbered by an abusive husband; I saw the anguish in the faces of an elderly couple when their declining health forced them to sell their home, give up their independence, and move into a long-term-care facility; I listened to countless young couples pour out their souls as they struggled to get their marriages into survival mode when confronted with overextended debt ..."

In 1989, Huckabee ran against Ronnie Floyd of Springdale for the presidency of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.

Huckabee won and served as president from 1989 to 1991.

Huckabee has received two honorary doctorates: a Doctor of Humane Letters, received from John Brown University in 1991, and a Doctor of Laws from Ouachita Baptist University in 1992.

In Huckabee's first political race in 1992, he lost to incumbent Democratic senator Dale Bumpers, receiving 40 percent of the vote in the general election.

In the same election, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton was elected president, making lieutenant governor Jim Guy Tucker the new governor when Clinton resigned the governorship.

In 1993, Republican state chairman Asa Hutchinson urged Huckabee to run in the special election for lieutenant governor held on July 27.

Realizing his loss came among key conservative Democrats, Huckabee ran a decidedly conservative campaign.

In the subsequent general election, he defeated Nate Coulter, who had been Bumpers's campaign manager the previous year, 51–49 percent.

Dick Morris, who had previously worked for Bill Clinton, advised Huckabee on his races in 1993, 1994, and 1998.

He was a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomination in both 2008 and 2016.

He is the host of the talk show Huckabee, which ran on the Fox News Channel from 2008 to 2015, and has run on TBN since October 2017.

In the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, Huckabee won the 2008 Iowa Republican caucuses and finished second in delegate count and third in both popular vote and number of states won, behind John McCain and Mitt Romney.

From April 2012 through December 2013, he hosted a daily radio program, The Mike Huckabee Show, on weekday afternoons for Cumulus Media Networks.

Huckabee is the author of several best-selling books, co-founder of the Kids Guide to Fighting Socialism, an ordained Southern Baptist Pastor noted for his evangelical views, a musician, and a public speaker.

He was also a political commentator on The Huckabee Report.

He paused the show in January 2015 in order to explore a potential bid for the presidency.

Huckabee ran again for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election, but withdrew early in the primary following a disappointing finish in the Iowa caucus.

Huckabee is the father of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the current governor of Arkansas and a former White House press secretary.