Mike Huckabee (59): The former Republican governor of Arkansas and ordained Southern Baptist minister also ran in the 2008 presidential election and won eight primaries, but his campaign faltered partly from lack of funds. Huckabee hosted an eponymous television show on Fox News Channel for six years, until January, and still hosts 'The Huckabee Report' on ABC Radio.He was raised Southern Baptist, and gave his first sermon as a teenager. Speaking of the importance of personal faith he said recently: "In every person's life the only thing that makes life truly worth living the next day is knowing that that emptiness is filled by the Lord Jesus Christ." After his first degree in religion, Huckabee attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary but didn't finish his master's degree. He worked as a pastor in Arkansas for 12 years, and still plays the bass guitar in the church band.
In a 2007 interview with the Religion News Service, he said he thought his pastoral experience was good preparation for his political work. "I think it's the greatest preparation that a person can have for public service," he said. "There's not any social pathology that I couldn't put a name and a face to... I've dealt with a 14-year-old girl who's pregnant and hasn't told her parents yet. I've talked to the young couple who's head over heels in debt... I think it gives you a real perspective about people and what they're going through that's important."
He is concerned about the place of Christianity in contemporary America, and has been highly critical of the opposition to religious liberty laws in Arkansas and Indiana. Speaking on the Family Research Council's 'Washington Watch' Huckabee said: "It won't stop, until there are no more churches, until there are no more people who are spreading the gospel, and I'm talking now about the unabridged, unapologetic gospel that is really God's truth."
Huckabee is staunchly opposed to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest and has called for Roe v Wade to be repealed. He's also a committed defender of traditional marriage, and has signed a pledge in opposition to the current case in the Supreme Court. In his 2015 book God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy he writes: "For believers, changing the definition of marriage is no more an option than it would be for observant Jews to serve bacon-wrapped shrimp or Hindus to open a steakhouse." In the past he has also opposed civil unions for same-sex couples.
In his campaign launch video Huckabee vows to lead with "moral clarity". "There's a difference between right and wrong, there's a difference between good and evil," he says, adding that he will "keep all the options on the table in order to defeat the evil forces of radical Islam."
