what the huck?

Mike Huckabee Definitely Not Running for President

As he hinted at earlier this week, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has decided not to seek the Republican nomination in the 2012 presidential election. Huckabee, well known and well liked, routinely led the polls, so why did he decide not to go up against Barack Obama, adding more uncertainty to the upcoming race? Following his interview with Mario Lopez, at the tail end of his Fox News show Saturday evening, Huckabee said he was acquiescing to his heart’s true wishes:

I will not seek the Republican nomination for president this year. Under the best of circumstances being president is a job that takes one to the limit of his or her human capacity. For me to do it apart from an inner confidence that I was undertaking it without God’s full blessing is simply unthinkable. All the factors say go, but my heart says no.

According to the L.A. Times, insiders suspect that Huckabee’s aversion to fund-raising and his comfortable $500,000 yearly salary contributed to the decision. Time’s Mark Halperin, meanwhile, calls Huckabee’s motivations unclear, noting that “Iowa, evangelical voters, South Carolina, the populism space, and the anti-Big Business space” are now up for grabs. In any case, the factors say go, but my heart says no? Republicans: poets, all.

Huckabee Says He Won’t Run for President [NYT]

Mike Huckabee Definitely Not Running for President