WASHINGTON — Most Americans know one thing about Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, if they know anything at all: He lost more than 100 pounds in one year, a triumph touted in a weight-loss book that he has hawked around the country.
But evangelical conservative activists know one or two other things that make the governor a standout among Republicans who may run for president in 2008: Huckabee is a Baptist minister and a fierce defender of traditional family values.
"Let's face it," he recently told a crowd of Christian conservatives in Iowa, the state that holds the nation's earliest presidential caucuses. "In our lifetimes, we've seen our country go from 'Leave It to Beaver' to 'Beavis and Butt-head,' from Barney Fife to Barney Frank, from 'Father Knows Best' to television shows where father knows nothing."
Huckabee's early outreach to evangelicals -- in Iowa and elsewhere -- is a tribute to the clout of the GOP's Christian conservative wing. That faction was crucial to President Bush's reelection in 2004, and is maneuvering to have a big say in who wins the party's nomination in 2008.
The Iowa Christian Alliance has invited all of the potential Republican candidates to address voters around the state. Antiabortion activists have scrutinized potential contenders' records. A coalition of national conservative groups has summoned potential candidates to a conference here in September that it expects to be attended by 2,000 or more "values voters."
"We are looking forward to a vibrant competition among politicians for these voters," said Gary Bauer, a conservative leader who ran for president in 2000. "No one owns them."
Because no candidate has a lock on conservative evangelicals, virtually all of the major Republican politicians -- even those who have been at odds with the Christian right on hot-button issues -- see an opportunity to win their favor.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has disavowed past statements supporting abortion rights. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) dropped his support for covering homosexuals in hate crimes legislation. Even Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, whose liberal record on social issues is anathema to many conservatives, recently spoke to a meeting of evangelical leaders in the South.
