Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that Fred Thompson, who is expected to enter the race next month, will not supplant him as the most electable GOP southerner.
Huckabee suggested that his experience as governor of Arkansas will trump Thompson’s experience as a U.S. senator from Tennessee.
“I’ve actually run something and balanced budgets,” Huckabee told The Examiner.
Huckabee also predicted that Thompson’s entry into the White House race will be anticlimactic.
“There’s all this anticipation, and then once a person gets in, it’s kind of like, oh OK, well, he’s in,” he said. “I tend to believe that once he is in, there will be less of the, almost, aura than there is until he does get in.”
Huckabee’s remarks came a day after the third GOP presidential debate. A growing number of pundits are saying Huckabee turned in the most consistently solid performances of those three sessions.
“The man is funny and the man is eloquent,” CBS’ Jeff Greenfield said.
CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin considered Huckabee more articulate than any of the other GOP candidates or even the Democrats, who debated on Sunday.
“I thought the most eloquent person I heard, either tonight or Sunday night, was Mike Huckabee,” Toobin said. “I thought his answer about evolution and his one about what it means to be pro-life were breathtaking.”
NBC’s Tim Russert added: “He took a big step in trying to break out of the second tier, and there’s a lot of buzz now about Huckabee as a potential vice presidential candidate.”
Huckabee said Wednesday he has no interest in the second spot on the GOP ticket.
“I’m not running for vice president,” he said. “I guess maybe I should be flattered that people are saying at least I should be on the ticket. That’s better than saying that I shouldn’t even be on the stage. So I’ll take it as a compliment rather than necessarily a put-down.”
Praised even by rival candidate John McCain as “eloquent,” Huckabee said he honed his communications skills during his years in TV, radio, advertising and preaching as a Baptist pastor.
“One of the qualities that we must have in the next president is the ability to communicate,” he told The Examiner. “It’s frankly one of the greatest challenges that President Bush has had.”
