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Published October 14, 2005
GARY FANDEL/REGISTER PHOTOS
Staying fit: Goodrell
Middle School instructor John Walling, left, shows Arkansas Gov.
Mike Huckabee, right, and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack various fitness
stations Thursday. Youth fitness is of particular interest to
Huckabee, who has lost 110 pounds.
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Pataki to return to Iowa this month |
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New
York Gov. George Pataki plans to return to Iowa at the end of
October. The Republican is the seventh would-be presidential
candidate to make plans to visit the state this
month.
Pataki is scheduled to arrive Oct. 27 and make
appearances in the Davenport area, Clinton and Pella before
leaving Oct. 28. It would be Pataki's third trip this year to
Iowa, where the precinct caucuses are set to launch the drive
to the 2008
nomination.
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Huckabee makes visit No. 5
The Arkansas Republican says governors have big appeal for the 2008
presidential race.
By
REGISTER STAFF
WRITER
Arkansas Gov. Mike
Huckabee said in Iowa Thursday that he expects Republicans to look outside
of Washington, D.C., for their party's national leaders in
2008.
But the Baptist minister-turned-GOP politician wouldn't say
whether he expects to be the party standard bearer in 2008. He was on his
fifth trip to the state that launches the presidential nominating
drive.
President Bush's lagging approval and serious problems for
some congressional GOP leaders give governors greater appeal nationally,
Huckabee said during a trip to the Des Moines area.
"I do think
that all those things going on give people more of a concern and have them
looking beyond Washington," he told The Des Moines
Register.
Huckabee's visits to Iowa — all since July — have made
him his party's most frequent caucus-state visitor and have boosted his
mentions as a potential 2008 candidate.
He says it's too early to
know whether he will be running in a little more than a year, when caucus
campaigns begin to take shape.
But Huckabee says his experience as
a governor re-elected in a typically Democratic state are among attributes
he thinks would appeal to GOP activists in Iowa.
"Often it doesn't
matter whether it's Democrat or Republican, whether it's Congress or the
president, people still see that the innovative ideas and the idea of
change is not going to come from those who spend their time in the
Beltway," he added.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll
published Thursday showed Bush's approval at 39 percent, an all-time low
for the Republican. Huckabee's trip came during an unusually busy month in
Iowa this far from an election, with seven potential candidates scheduling
visits. In fact, Huckabee and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, a Democrat
considering a 2008 campaign, overlapped in Des Moines on
Thursday.
Huckabee is among a handful of GOP governors weighing a
2008 campaign. New York's George Pataki and Massachusetts' Mitt Romney
have said they are considering campaigns and have plans to visit Iowa this
month.
Huckabee's trip was tied to his work promoting health as the
chairman of the National Governors Association.
With Iowa Gov. Tom
Vilsack, he visited Goodrell Middle School in Des Moines to watch students
participate in the school's fitness program, a particular interest of
Huckabee's.
Afterward, he saw how families can monitor students'
eating habits at Ankeny High School. The once-obese governor, who has shed
110 pounds and written a book about his changes, fixed himself a salad in
the cafeteria.
He managed to work in some political time, stopping
in at the campaign headquarters of Jeff Lamberti, a state senator from
Ankeny who is running for Iowa's 3rd District U.S. House seat.
Most
preference polls don't even list Huckabee, who has been in office longer
than all GOP governors except Pataki.
But no-name status has not
deterred Huckabee, who has traveled to New Hampshire, home of the lead-off
presidential primary, as well as South Carolina, which has become host to
the first Southern primary.
"Am I considering it? Yes. Am I open to
it? Definitely," he said. "But so many things could happen before then
that it's really too early to say what I'll do."
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