Is America ready for another governor from Hope?

Any passing acquaintance of mine knows full well that I am a political nut.

I tend to askew CNN, FOX and MSNBC, preferring the hard stuff being shown on C-SPAN. (I'd watch C-SPAN 2 right now if it wasn't for it being all fuzzy on Gillette's lone cable system).

I guess that's the way of justifying my ongoing fascination with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. I first saw him a year or two ago while he was speaking at a fundraiser in New Hampshire that was televised — you guessed it — on C-SPAN. He has an interesting, if checkered, past as governor that is well-chronicled at Salon.com, where a recent article describes him as a Dr. Phil-meets-Ned Flanders-type character.

Like Clinton (Bill, not Hillary), Huckabee is a babyboomer from Hope, Ark. That said, the two are far from brethren. While Clinton certainly retained a certain amount of religious vigor, it doesn't come close to that of Huckabee, who was a Baptist minister before leaping into politics.

Read the article, take it in for yourself. Watching the guy speak, he seems like a John Edwards-type darkhorse in the now full-throttle presidential campaign.