HOPE, Ark. ? Mike Huckabee, who excited evangelical voters in his first presidential race in 2008 and retains much of their good will, announced on Tuesday that he will again seek the Republican nomination, despite a crowded field of rivals for his natural base in the party.
A former Southern Baptist pastor and Arkansas governor, Mr. Huckabee is returning in hopes of once more dominating among social conservatives, but he is acutely aware he needs broader support to avoid the snares of last time, when he ran dry of money and failed to appeal much beyond the South.
After describing a childhood of school prayer, fishing for catfish and running for student council in Hope, Mr. Huckabee said, ?So it seems perfectly fitting that it would be here that I announce I am a candidate for president of the United States.?
It was no small detail that he declared his candidacy in Hope, where he was born. Its fame as the hometown of an even better-known Arkansas politician, Bill Clinton, highlights a major theme of Mr. Huckabee?s 2016 pitch ? that he is well suited to be the Republican nemesis for Hillary Rodham Clinton, if she becomes the Democratic nominee, because Mr. Huckabee spent years in state politics fighting what he calls the ?Clinton machine.?
Like Mr. Clinton, Mr. Huckabee grew up with little and casts himself as a populist champion of the working class, though with conservative solutions. He attacked trade deals that ?drive wages lower than the dead sea? and implicitly rebuked Jeb Bush for recently proposing to raise the age for collecting Social Security benefits.
On the day Mrs. Clinton entered the race last month, Mr. Huckabee tweaked her on Twitter: ?Your announcement makes me nostalgic for our days doing political battle in Arkansas.?
The biggest question in voters? minds about Mr. Huckabee, 59, who seemed to add a final punctuation mark to his political career by skipping the 2012 presidential race, may be why he has returned to the fray.
Although American politics is full of stories of the ultimate triumph of also-rans, from Richard M. Nixon to Ronald Reagan, Mr. Huckabee would seem to face greater obstacles than during his first presidential campaign, when he battled only a couple of rivals for the party?s conservative base.
Now half a dozen or more declared and likely candidates appeal to social conservatives, and Mr. Huckabee?s party has moved further rightward. He is vulnerable to criticism for positions he once held in favor of the Common Core education standards and a cap-and-trade program to fight global warming.
?It is a completely different environment than 2008, with different issues and with different candidates,? said Bob Vander Plaats, who was chairman of Mr. Huckabee?s 2008 Iowa campaign and is uncommitted this time.
Mr. Huckabee?s upset victory in the Iowa caucuses eight years ago, powered by evangelicals and home-school families, has been burnished to a political legend in the state that holds the first nominating contest. Recent polls show Iowa Republicans still put Mr. Huckabee among their top preferences, although he has been surpassed by more prominent party figures including Scott Walker and Jeb Bush.
To an unusual degree, strategists for Mr. Huckabee are counting on his likability ? a folksy charm that a national audience got to know during his six years as a Fox News host ? to break through the pack of competitors.
On Tuesday, he deployed his affability in making a series of jabs at rivals that, in the mouth of another politician, could have seemed angry. He criticized candidates who deceive taxpayers and ?live off the government payroll? while running for higher office ? an elbow aimed at most of the current Republican field. ?Have the integrity and decency to resign,? Mr. Huckabee said.
One problem for his candidacy is likely to be money. Mr. Huckabee raised just over $16 million in 2008, and despite victories in eight nominating contests saw his campaign expire for lack of funds to advertise in major states like Florida. The rules of campaign finance have changed in the new ?super PAC? era, when as few as one or two super-wealthy supporters can fund an outside, parallel campaign. But it is unclear whether Mr. Huckabee has yet attracted such support.
Unusual for an announcement speech, Mr. Huckabee?s address Tuesday included a plea for money, specifically donations of $15 or $25 a month. ?I will ask you to give something in the name of your children and grandchildren,? he said.
In recent months, Mr. Huckabee has broadened his policy focus to the threat posed by Islamic extremists, and in his announcement he criticized President Obama for putting ?more pressure on our ally Israel to cease building bedrooms for their families in Judea and Samaria than we do on Iran for building a bomb.?
He has visits planned in the coming days to Iowa and South Carolina, a two-step between early nominating states with large numbers of evangelical voters. He will spend less time courting New Hampshire?s fiscal conservatives.
Should Mr. Huckabee?s campaign survive the early states, a potential bonus awaits him on March 1, when at least five conservative Southern states ? Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee ? are maneuvering to vote the same day. He won four of the states in 2008.
