December 12, 2007
The Huckabee Factor
by Zev Chafets
The New York Times
Mike Huckabee walked into the lobby of the Des Moines Marriott at 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 3, deposited an armful of dirty laundry at the desk and checked to make sure he was being credited with Marriott Rewards points toward his next stay.
Then, accompanied by his wife, Janet, his daughter, Sarah, and his press secretary, Alice Stewart -- who doubles as his Boston Marathon trainer -- he walked into the dark, freezing morning, climbed into a waiting S.U.V. and headed for Central College in Pella, Iowa.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, was in a buoyant mood on three hours of sleep. The night before, his commercial flight suffered a long Chicago holdover on the way from Boston, but he had reason to hope that his days at the mercy of the airlines might be numbered. A Des Moines Register opinion poll had just shown Huckabee passing Mitt Romney to take the lead in the run-up to the Jan. 3 caucus. His picture, he already knew, was on the front page of that morning's USA Today.
Now he was headed to Central College, to appear, surrounded by enthusiastic students, on ''The Early Show'' on CBS . This kind of momentum, he hoped, would finally produce enough cash to allow him to charter his own plane.
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