MUSCATINE, IOWA — Mary Kathryn Shouse is part of the Mike Huckabee surge, having newly decided that the homespun former Arkansas governor is "the whole package" of policy and Christian values. And it doesn't hurt that he delivers a speech without seeming like he's delivering a speech.
"I felt that he was very in tune with his audience and that he was speaking to me, and not over my head," Shouse, 42, said a few minutes after the GOP presidential candidate finished a 45- minute talk at a banquet hall in this town hugging the Mississippi River. "I thought it was very comfortable."
If Huckabee's campaign has a secret weapon, it could well be the candidate's gifts as a communicator. Using Southern charm and storytelling, Huckabee's stump speech is more entertainment than oratory. Sharp jabs are cloaked by a smile and a joke, and offered in a cadence reminiscent of a warm-talking preacher -- which he has been -- and a radio host -- which he also has been.
Huckabee enters the room, his name on a banner hung behind a lectern, but he doesn't use the lectern as anything more than a place to rest his arm while he talks.
Huckabee is looking for an intimate engagement with a room full of people -- up to 200.
The overall effect is something like a political self-help guru willing to lead the way to a stronger, more faith-filled society.
Darrell Sather, 60, said he's seen all the candidates "up close and personal," but was nearly convinced after listening to a single Huckabee speech at a Coralville convention hall.
"I'm impressed with down-home, direct, honest speaking. I don't get very impressed with the big words," he said. " . . . God likes average people, and that's why he made a whole bunch of us. That's one of my values, and I think he reflects that."
Huckabee tells the boyhood story of his father dragging him down to see the governor because "you may live your whole life and you may never get to meet a governor."
He champions the middle and working classes, which he says are taken for granted by the "chattering classes" of Wall Street and Washington.
He is eager, he says, to go to work for the people.
Against that backdrop, specific policy details carry less significance, said Lyombe "Leo" Eko, 51, a naturalized citizen who came to the U.S. as a student from Cameroon nearly penniless and now teaches media law at the University of Iowa.
