Republican Mike Huckabee is set to announce his bid for president next month in the same town that launched President Bill Clinton, whose spouse Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in 2016.
Huckabee and Clinton are both former Arkansas governors — and both hail from Hope, Ark., where Huckabee intends to reveal his 2016 plans on May 5.
Huckabee didn’t get specific about his announcement, but an event in his hometown would suggest he’s launching a second White House bid. He ran in 2008, coming in first in the Iowa caucuses, before falling short down the line to eventual GOP nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
“I’ll let everybody say just, come to Hope on May the fifth, you’ll find out what’s going to happen,” Huckabee said in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier Friday evening. “I don’t think anyone should enter a decision that is this monumental … without a lot of prayer, a lot of thoughtful consideration.”
Huckabee served just over a decade in the governor’s mansion, winning election the same year that Bill Clinton was re-elected president. Huckabee has noted that he always had to battle the Clinton political machine in Arkansas.
Clinton made much of the town and the portents in its name when he ran for president, unspooling a short film called “The Man From Hope” at the 1992 Democratic convention.
In addition to following a pattern of presidential candidates launching their White House bids from their home town, choosing Hope for the announcement highlights one of Huckabee’s chief sales pitches to GOP primary voters — that he knows how to fight back against a Clinton.
