The other man from Hope - POLITICO POLITICO The other man from Hope Bill Clinton used Hope. Now it’s Mike Huckabee’s turn. Print Bill Clinton used Hope. Now it’s Mike Huckabee’s turn. Huckabee is expected to say he’s running for president again on Tuesday morning in his Arkansas hometown — Hope — not quite 23 years after Clinton said at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York, first at the end of a 14-minute video titled “A Man from Hope,” then at the end of a 53-minute speech, “I still believe in a place called Hope.” Story Continued Below For Huckabee, it’s a challenge no other 2016 candidate faces: Even though his roots in the town run much deeper than Clinton’s, he must avoid looking in any way like a copycat. But by returning to Hope to make his announcement — something he didn’t do the last time around — friends of his and watchers of politics in the state say he’s adopting a strategy that’s much more head-on. I’m the real man from Hope. Clinton, the former Arkansas governor who became the 42nd president, was born in Hope on Aug. 19, 1946.

Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who wants to be the 45th, was born in Hope on Aug. 24, 1955. In their respective memoirs, they both box-checked the birthplace with similar-sounding, soft-focused look-backs. “Mother and I came home to her parents’ house on Hervey Street in Hope, where I would spend the next four years,” Clinton wrote in My Life. He recalled “the smells of country food” and “buttermilk churns, ice-cream makers, washboards” and “strange voices talking over our ‘party line’ telephone.” “For me,” Huckabee wrote in From Hope to Higher Ground, “‘hope’ is more than a word that describes the American spirit. Every time I hear it I think of home.” For Clinton and Huckabee, pre-integration, pre-interstate, postwar Hope, 10 or so square miles with a population of less than 10,000 people, had two daily newspapers and two downtown movie theaters, at which children paid for tickets and Cokes with coins, not bills, and pedaled bicycles and roamed shoeless in summers and watched trains roll through on the way to somewhere else.

Nostalgia’s always half-true. Clinton broke his leg in kindergarten when the heel of one of his cowboy boots got caught on a line tied taut between a swing set and a tree. He rolled around on the ground and sobbed while his classmates chanted and teased. “Billy’s a sissy! Billy’s a sissy! Billy’s a sissy!” Huckabee learned about gayness, he explained in God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, when his Boy Scouts Scoutmaster molested “a fairly sizable number” of the boys in his troop. He wasn’t branded as a sex offender, Huckabee wrote, “because in those days, the term didn’t exist and no one would have known what it meant.” Hope was introduced to America, by Clinton, in 1992 in Madison Square Garden. Enough of the electorate thought Hope sounded nice. But to the ears of actual Arkansans, and coming from Clinton, “I believe in a place called Hope” sounded a little different. Hope? Down in the economically depressed southwest corner of the state?

In his runs for Congress, lieutenant governor and then governor, starting in 1974 and for more than a decade and a half, Clinton had never in this way invoked Hope. Because he moved to Hot Springs after first grade. Because Hot Springs is where he grew up. Because Hot Springs is where he graduated high school. In June of 1973, when Clinton picked up a girlfriend at the airport in Little Rock, he drove Hillary Rodham past the state capitol and the governor’s mansion, through the Arkansas River Valley and the Ouachita Mountains, on his way home. “As dusk fell,” she wrote in Living History, “we arrived, at last, in Hot Springs …” “Clinton was more from Hot Springs than he was from Hope, but Hope was more evocative of the themes he was trying to put forth,” Ouachita Baptist University political science professor Hal Bass said the other day on the phone from Arkadelphia. “Hot Springs was not as useful in terms of its name. Hot Springs was not as useful in terms of its image.” “Hot Springs had this longtime reputation as the Sodom of the South, the loose buckle of the Bible Belt,” said Rex Nelson, a former Huckabee strategist and aide.

“Hope had never been any kind of focus for Clinton at all.” But seven years after he first said he still believed in Hope, on a trip back to the town, Clinton was greeted with a banner saying “I still believe in a place called Hope” and a gaggle of schoolchildren singing an a capella version of a song they had written called “I still believe in a place called Hope.” The first time Huckabee announced he was running for president, on Jan. 28, 2007, not three weeks after he left the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, he did it on NBC on Meet the Press, which is not close to Hope and headed in the opposite direction. He had at the ready in his initial presidential run a line of his own. “You are from Hope, Arkansas, the same small town Bill Clinton was from,” Bill Maher said to him on his HBO show on March 16, 2007. “I’ve got a great slogan,” Huckabee said. “‘Give us” — Hope — ”one more chance.’” Huckabee is expected to say he’s running for president again on Tuesday morning in his Arkansas hometown.

| AP “Give us one more chance,” he said again to a crowd at a seafood restaurant in South Carolina that April, and at the start of a debate in New Hampshire that June, and at the Conservative Political Action Committee gathering in Washington the following February. It didn’t stick, or work, the way Clinton’s line did. The Baptist minister won the Iowa caucuses because of his socially conservative views but faded after that. Now, come Tuesday, the location itself is a big part of the message. “I obviously can’t give you a preview of the speech, but the backdrop is important because that’s where he grew up,” Huckabee spokesman Hogan Gidley said. “It’s home. It’s where his friends live.” It’s where he graduated from high school. It’s where his wife is from. It’s more than that. The name of the place remains manna from the politics gods. It kindles imagery of small towns and humble origins, not Hollywood, not New York, not Washington, not “Bubble-ville” but “Bubba-ville” — phrases favored by Huckabee, who likes private planes and lives in a 10,900-square-foot house on the beach in the Panhandle of Florida.

Most important, though, at this point Hope begs a comparison Huckabee aims to highlight. “I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t use it as a way to contrast himself with the Clinton machine,” said Jay Barth, a political science professor at Hendrix College in Conway and a co-editor of Arkansas Politics and Government. “I think he can use it to emphasize himself as the ‘un-Clinton.’” “You think of Bill Clinton, you think of Fayetteville and Hot Springs; that’s really where he lived,” said Dr. Lester Sitzes, a Hope dentist who was Huckabee’s best man and is still one of his best friends. “A lot of people from Hope didn’t realize he was from Hope until he ran for president.” “He’s not going to come out and say it,” Nelson said of the Huckabee speech, “but that’s the message: I really am from here. This really is home.” “He’s one of us,” said Mark Keith, the head of the area chamber of commerce.

“America,” Gidley said, “is going to get a chance to see where Mike Huckabee came from.” A place where Caddo Indians once lived in small groups on the banks of the Red River before Manifest Destiny and epidemic disease; a place where titanic watermelons long have grown in the sandy soil with its shallow roots; a place where the largest source of jobs is a Tyson chicken plant; a place where some of the commerce sucked from downtown by the completion in the 1970s of Interstate 30 has returned in the form of Clinton baubles and novelties hawked and displayed at the house where he was born, and the house where he then moved, and the old train depot that’s been turned into a museum, all of them stops on what the state sells as a “Billgrimage.” Hope.

A Place Called Hope: Tour the Arkansas Town at the Center of the Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee Rivalry - ABC News ABC News A Place Called Hope: Tour the Arkansas Town at the Center of the Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee Rivalry By Ben Gittleson HOPE, Arkansas  May 8, 2015, 10:27 AM ET 0 Shares Play Getty Images WATCH A Place Called Hope: Visit the Arkansas Town That Launched Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee 0 Shares Email Mike Huckabee grew up less than a five minute drive from Bill Clinton ’s childhood home, but he doesn’t hold any warm or neighborly feelings toward the former president. The two political stars were born in the same hospital, attended the same kindergarten and went to the same elementary school -- although nearly a decade apart. The men, who both served as governors of Arkansas, never lived in Hope at the same time, but both have used their small hometown to their political benefit. As Huckabee, 59, kicks off his second run for the White House, he’s making his southwestern Arkansas upbringing a centerpiece of his campaign, much as Clinton did in his 1992 presidential run.

But now the two men from Hope are pitted against each other with both Huckabee and Hillary Clinton seeking the same office. Huckabee returned to his birthplace earlier this week to announce that he, too, hopes to one day become president. In announcing his candidacy , Huckabee invoked memories of learning to swim, ride a bike, handle a firearm and tell “the difference between right and wrong.” He said he “grew up in a small town that was far removed from the power, the money and the influence that runs this country.” So, how did such a small town produce two Arkansas governors -- one of whom became president and one who aspires to follow him to Pennsylvania Avenue? "Before Clinton, Hope was known for growing the largest watermelons in the world,” Dennis Ramsey, the city's mayor since 1993 and for several years in the 1980s, told ABC News. “I guess it’s something in the watermelons. That answer’s as good as any.” But even with its famous fruit , it was Clinton who put Hope on the map.

Clinton is beloved here: A major thoroughfare bears his name, his first home is a tourist attraction run by the National Park Service , and the town’s visitor center has his life on display. But Huckabee’s familiarity is just as real, according to Ramsey, who also runs three bank branches in the area. “When he walks on the street, he knows most people by name,” Ramsey said. The mayor, who seemed to know most people himself when he stopped at a downtown burger joint one day this week, remembered a young Huckabee walking to the fire station to see his firefighter father; Ramsey’s stepfather was also a fireman. At the firehouse, the assistant fire chief said he used to work with Huckabee’s brother-in-law at a nearby steel joist plant; several people cited similar extended-family ties to Huckabee or his wife. “Everybody likes him,” the fireman, Carroll Schmitt, said, calling Huckabee a “good Christian.” “There’ll be real strong support,” he added. A short film about Clinton’s childhood in Arkansas played at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, portraying him as a product of the middle class.

Clinton memorably closed his remarks at the convention by declaring , “I still believe in a place called Hope.” "When he made that statement, 'I still believe in a place called Hope,' our world changed," Ramsey said. "For a time, Hope became the center of the universe." Huckabee’s campaign has already taken a page out of the Clinton notebook. A video that played before Huckabee’s announcement Tuesday trumped what it portrayed as his uphill battle against “Bill Clinton’s Arkansas” when he became governor. Another showed Huckabee driving past his old house, the fire station and Clinton’s boyhood home – “we won’t spend a lot of time here,” he says with a chuckle. "I hope I never forget where I come from,” he says, sitting outside the home. “I hope I never forget this porch. I hope I never forget what it’s like to live in a neighborhood where neighbors know about each other and care about each other.” But Huckabee’s ascension was, in fact, enabled by Clinton’s own rise. When then-governor Clinton became president, Arkansas’ lieutenant governor became governor and Huckabee ran in a special election for the office, after losing a U.S. Senate run.

He served for several years before rising to the governorship when the previous governor resigned amid scandal. Clinton, 68, moved to nearby Hot Springs, Ark., at age seven, two years before Huckabee was born. Huckabee, on the other hand, lived in town through college and met his wife there. He returns regularly for high school reunions, according to the mayor. Founded in 1875 along just-built railroad tracks, Hope boasts a population of around 10,500. It’s a low-to-middle income place with a diverse economy – poultry and steel joist plants and a large-scale bakery are big employers. It is about 43 percent black, 34 percent white and 21 percent Hispanic, according to 2010 U.S. Census data, with neighborhoods still partly delineated along racial lines decades after integration, Ramsey said. While much in Hope hasn’t changed over the years, Huckabee's campaign comes after a marked recent shift in the area toward the Republican Party . Statewide, the last time a Democratic presidential candidate received Arkansans’ electoral votes was in the 1990s, when Clinton was running.

Ramsey, the mayor, said he’s an independent who has never endorsed a candidate for office. But he said he was grateful for the notoriety and economic “shot in the arm” Clinton’s win gave Hope and recognized the uniqueness of potentially claiming two presidents as native sons. “Not many towns,” he said, “can say they’re the birthplace of a president." 0 Shares Mike Huckabee - Biography - IMDb Mike Huckabee Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trivia (26) | Personal Quotes (3) Overview (3) 5' 11" (1.8 m) Mini Bio (1) Mike Huckabee was born on August 24, 1955 in Hope, Arkansas, USA as Michael Dale Huckabee. He is an actor, known for Huckabee (2008), Fox and Friends (1998) and An Inconvenient Tax (2011). He has been married to Janet McCain since May 25, 1974. They have three children.

Spouse (1) ( 25 May 1974 - present) (3 children) Trivia (26) Governor of Arkansas from 15 July 1996 to 9 January 2007. Lost over 110 pounds on advice from his doctors after learning in 2003 that he had Type 2 diabetes. Hated I Heart Huckabees (2004), stating "It was as if somebody forgot to give the actors a script and said, For the next two hours, just go out there and do something.". Born in Hope, Arkansas, birthplace of one of his predecessors and 42nd President of the United States Bill Clinton . Born to Dorsey W. Huckabee, a fireman and mechanic, and his wife Mae Elder, a clerk in a gas company, he has one sister. Announced his candidacy for the 2008 US presidential election (28 January 2007). Close friend of Chuck Norris and Ricky Skaggs . He plays bass guitar in his own rock and roll band called "Capitol Offense". Former pastor and mayor.

Was a fellow seminary student with Rick Warren at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Mike dropped out of seminary after one year in order to take a job in Christian broadcasting. Has three dogs: Jet (a black Lap), Sonic (a shin tse) and Toby (a Cavlier King spaniel). His daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders , and Anne Pressly were both at a wedding shower, a week before Anne's fatal brutal attack. Daughter Sarah Huckabee Sanders 's firm is working on Tim Pawlenty 's 2012 presidential campaign. First grandchild, a boy named Chandler James Huckabee, was born on July 2, 2011. Both he and James Robison worked together at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Later, he worked as director of communications for James. Has an in-studio band, comprised of Fox employees, on Huckabee (2008). The band, called "The Little Rockers", includes Diane Macedo , Lauren Green , Kelly Wright , Jennifer Proctor . His granddaughter, Caroline Grace Huckabee, was born to David Huckabee and Lauren Huckabee, on August 24, 2013, Governor Huckabee's birthday.

Release of his book, "Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork: A 12-Stop Program to End Bad Habits and Begin a Healthy Lifestyle". [2005] Release of his book, "Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America". [2008] Release of his book, "Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence". [1998] Release of his book, "From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 Stops to Restoring America's Greatness". [2007] Release of his book, "A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories That Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit". [November 2009] Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » ROOTED IN “HOPE” Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee Rhodes Cook, Senior Columnist January 3rd, 2008 It may not be that unusual for a large state to produce a pair of major presidential candidates within a generation, but for a small town to do so is astounding. That is the case with Hope, Arkansas, which is the birthplace of two modern-day White House aspirants–Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee.

Clinton, of course, was elected president in the 1990s. Huckabee has the same goal this year, with the Iowa caucuses today (Jan. 3) a critical opening test. Hope would appear an unlikely place to launch two presidential candidates. It lies quietly along Interstate 30 between Little Rock and Texarkana, has a population of barely 10,000, and merits nary a mention in the American Automobile Association (AAA) guidebook of places to visit in Arkansas. Probably Hope’s most memorable feature is its old train depot, featured prominently in a 1992 Bill Clinton campaign video. And if one listens to Clinton and Huckabee, each was born on the wrong side of the tracks. Yet both were able to transcend their modest beginnings, climb the political ladder, and prepare for the national stage by showing themselves to be formidable vote-getters in Arkansas. To be sure, there are some clear differences between Hope’s most prominent natives. Clinton is a Democrat; Huckabee a Republican in a state where it is still an uphill fight for GOP candidates. Clinton is an Ivy League graduate and Rhodes Scholar; Huckabee has a bachelor’s degree from a small Baptist college in Arkansas.

Clinton launched his first political campaign from the faculty of the University of Arkansas Law School. Huckabee initially went into the ministry, rising to the presidency of the Arkansas Southern Baptist Convention. But in many respects, they are cut from the same cloth. Both are born politicians–gifted orators with a bent for story-telling and music. Clinton famously likes to riff on the saxophone; Huckabee on the bass guitar. In spite of their political success, neither has been invincible. Each took on a popular incumbent in his first bid for office, and lost–Clinton, to veteran Republican Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt in 1974; Huckabee to Democratic Sen. Dale Bumpers in 1992. But both quickly followed their losing debut with a successful run for a lower state office–Clinton for attorney general, Huckabee for lieutenant governor–that served as a springboard for each to the Arkansas governorship. Figure 1. Bill and Huck: Climbing Arkansas’ Political Ladder Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee are not only the most famous natives of Hope, Arkansas, but they have made similar climbs up the state’s political ladder.

Each lost their first bid for public office and each served multiple terms as governor before making their first run for president. An asterisk (*) indicates a special election; a pound sign (#) denotes Huckabee’s present age. (He was born on Aug. 24, 1955, almost nine years after Bill Clinton.) BILL CLINTON Won Source: CQ’s Politics in America (CQ Press). Both have had their share of ethics questions. Clinton’s have ranged from womanizing to problematic land deals; Huckabee’s have taken the form of controversy in the commutation of prison sentences and the repeated acceptance of lavish gifts from supporters. Both men are part of a potent political couple, married to strong-willed women who have nurtured political ambitions of their own. Hillary Clinton’s are already on their way to being realized, as she holds a Senate seat from New York and is in the midst of a presidential campaign in which she is the Democratic front-runner. On the other hand, Janet Huckabee’s most visible bid for elective office ended with a thud, as she lost a race for Arkansas secretary of state in 2002.

That race came in the same year that her husband was running for governor, and the dual Huckabee campaigns were seen as a drag on his own bid for reelection. He won, but his 53 percent share of the vote was 7 percentage points lower than his previous gubernatorial victory in 1998. Yet Clinton’s last gubernatorial race in 1990 saw him on the downswing as well. He approached it with an evident lack of enthusiasm. With a presidential campaign in his sights, Clinton admitted that “the fire of an election (in Arkansas) no longer burns in me.” His winning percentage dropped to 57 percent in 1990, fully 6 points below his previous gubernatorial showing four years earlier. Yet their final gubernatorial races did give both Clinton and Huckabee one last chance to show their broad vote-getting appeal on the Arkansas stage. Clinton carried more than 40 counties in 1990 that Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush had won in sweeping Arkansas two years earlier. Huckabee won more than 30 counties in 2002 that Clinton had swept as the successful Democratic national standard-bearer in 1992 and 1996.

Many of the counties carried by both Huckabee and Clinton were rural ones, dotted with small towns not much different than Hope. Figure 2. Pat Robertson’s Iowa “14” Probably the most cited model for Mike Huckabee in today’s Iowa voting is televangelist Pat Robertson. But to win the state’s Republican caucuses, Huckabee will have to improve on Robertson’s second-place finish in 1988, when he took 25 percent of the GOP caucus vote and carried 14 counties. Bob Dole won Iowa that year, while the eventual Republican nominee, George H.W. Bush, finished third and failed to carry even one of Iowa’s 99 counties. Counties carried by Pat Robertson in 1988 Iowa Republican caucuses Allamakee Wapello Building on the Robertson Model Huckabee is hopeful that he can demonstrate a similar vote-getting success this year, mounting an inclusive campaign that garners the support of evangelical and secular voters alike. Yet so far, his presidential bid has been compared less to Clinton, who was able to do just that, than Pat Robertson, the Virginia Beach televangelist who enjoyed mixed success in his 1988 run for the Republican nomination.

With his ardent band of socially conservative supporters, Robertson ran quite well in 1988 in the caucus states, where a few votes can go a long way. He won first-round caucus action in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington, and finished a strong second in Iowa with 25 percent of the vote. Of Iowa’s 99 counties, Robertson carried 14, a mix of rural Republican counties and Democratic-oriented ones along the Mississippi River from Lee (Keokuk) north to Dubuque. But Robertson bombed in the primaries, where turnouts are much larger. He not only failed to carry a single primary state, but did not come close to winning any of them. In New Hampshire (which votes next Tuesday, Jan. 8), Robertson drew only 9 percent of the Republican primary vote; in Florida (which holds a primary Jan. 29), he received just 11 percent. Even in South Carolina, arguably part of the Southern “Bible Belt,” he won just 19 percent. (South Carolina’s Republican primary this year is on Jan. 19.) Exit polls for the 1988 Iowa Republican caucuses showed that roughly two-thirds of Robertson’s support came from evangelicals.

The challenge for Huckabee in Iowa and the contests beyond will be to hold a large share of the evangelical vote while building on this base to include a large array of non-evangelical voters as well. His ability to do so will determine whether Huckabee is the latest incarnation of Pat Robertson, or the second president in a decade to hail from “a place called Hope.” Figure 3. Pat Robertson: Where He Ran Best in 1988 As a presidential candidate, televangelist Pat Robertson is a dubious role model for Mike Huckabee. Robertson drew more than 1 million votes in the 1988 Republican presidential primaries but failed to carry a single primary state. His three victories came in caucus states, where turnout was lower and his well-organized cadre of supporters could dominate. Event A Place Called Hope: Tour the Arkansas Town at the Center of the Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee Rivalry - Yahoo A Place Called Hope: Tour the Arkansas Town at the Center of the Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee Rivalry By BEN GITTLESON, Video ALI DUKAKIS and TOM THORNTON May 8, 2015 5:27 PM  .

View photo A Place Called Hope: Tour the Arkansas Town at the Center of the Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee Rivalry (ABC News) Mike Huckabee grew up less than a five minute drive from Bill Clinton ’s childhood home, but he doesn’t hold any warm or neighborly feelings toward the former president. The two political stars were born in the same hospital, attended the same kindergarten and went to the same elementary school -- although nearly a decade apart. The men, who both served as governors of Arkansas, never lived in Hope at the same time, but both have used their small hometown to their political benefit. As Huckabee, 59, kicks off his second run for the White House, he’s making his southwestern Arkansas upbringing a centerpiece of his campaign, much as Clinton did in his 1992 presidential run. But now the two men from Hope are pitted against each other with both Huckabee and Hillary Clinton seeking the same office. Huckabee returned to his birthplace earlier this week to announce that he, too, hopes to one day become president.

In announcing his candidacy , Huckabee invoked memories of learning to swim, ride a bike, handle a firearm and tell “the difference between right and wrong.” He said he “grew up in a small town that was far removed from the power, the money and the influence that runs this country.” So, how did such a small town produce two Arkansas governors -- one of whom became president and one who aspires to follow him to Pennsylvania Avenue? "Before Clinton, Hope was known for growing the largest watermelons in the world,” Dennis Ramsey, the city's mayor since 1993 and for several years in the 1980s, told ABC News. “I guess it’s something in the watermelons. That answer’s as good as any.” But even with its famous fruit , it was Clinton who put Hope on the map. Clinton is beloved here: A major thoroughfare bears his name, his first home is a tourist attraction run by the National Park Service , and the town’s visitor center has his life on display. But Huckabee’s familiarity is just as real, according to Ramsey, who also runs three bank branches in the area. “When he walks on the street, he knows most people by name,” Ramsey said.

The mayor, who seemed to know most people himself when he stopped at a downtown burger joint one day this week, remembered a young Huckabee walking to the fire station to see his firefighter father; Ramsey’s stepfather was also a fireman. At the firehouse, the assistant fire chief said he used to work with Huckabee’s brother-in-law at a nearby steel joist plant; several people cited similar extended-family ties to Huckabee or his wife. “Everybody likes him,” the fireman, Carroll Schmitt, said, calling Huckabee a “good Christian.” “There’ll be real strong support,” he added. A short film about Clinton’s childhood in Arkansas played at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, portraying him as a product of the middle class. Clinton memorably closed his remarks at the convention by declaring , “I still believe in a place called Hope.” "When he made that statement, 'I still believe in a place called Hope,' our world changed," Ramsey said. "For a time, Hope became the center of the universe." Huckabee’s campaign has already taken a page out of the Clinton notebook. A video that played before Huckabee’s announcement Tuesday trumped what it portrayed as his uphill battle against “Bill Clinton’s Arkansas” when he became governor.

Another showed Huckabee driving past his old house, the fire station and Clinton’s boyhood home – “we won’t spend a lot of time here,” he says with a chuckle. "I hope I never forget where I come from,” he says, sitting outside the home. “I hope I never forget this porch. I hope I never forget what it’s like to live in a neighborhood where neighbors know about each other and care about each other.” But Huckabee’s ascension was, in fact, enabled by Clinton’s own rise. When then-governor Clinton became president, Arkansas’ lieutenant governor became governor and Huckabee ran in a special election for the office, after losing a U.S. Senate run. He served for several years before rising to the governorship when the previous governor resigned amid scandal. Clinton, 68, moved to nearby Hot Springs, Ark., at age seven, two years before Huckabee was born. Huckabee, on the other hand, lived in town through college and met his wife there. He returns regularly for high school reunions, according to the mayor. Founded in 1875 along just-built railroad tracks, Hope boasts a population of around 10,500.

It’s a low-to-middle income place with a diverse economy – poultry and steel joist plants and a large-scale bakery are big employers. It is about 43 percent black, 34 percent white and 21 percent Hispanic, according to 2010 U.S. Census data, with neighborhoods still partly delineated along racial lines decades after integration, Ramsey said. While much in Hope hasn’t changed over the years, Huckabee's campaign comes after a marked recent shift in the area toward the Republican Party . Statewide, the last time a Democratic presidential candidate received Arkansans’ electoral votes was in the 1990s, when Clinton was running. Ramsey, the mayor, said he’s an independent who has never endorsed a candidate for office. But he said he was grateful for the notoriety and economic “shot in the arm” Clinton’s win gave Hope and recognized the uniqueness of potentially claiming two presidents as native sons. “Not many towns,” he said, “can say they’re the birthplace of a president." Arkansas New Hope - Mike Huckabee - Pictures - CBS News Mike Huckabee Next Bowing Out Republican presidential hopeful, former Arkansas Gov.

Mike Huckabee drops out of the Republican presidential race at a primary watch party, Tuesday, March 4, 2008, in Irving, Texas, after John McCain clinched the nomination with a win in the Texas primary. "We kept the faith," he told his end-of-the-road rally. In the process, the former Baptist minister helped turn a slew of well-funded sure things into also-rans. Credit: AP Photo New Hope Like Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee was born in the small Arkansas town of Hope. Clinton became the youngest governor of the state, and then won a long-shot campaign for president. Huckabee also became governor of Arkansas (one of the youngest), and now hopes to be the second Hope native in the White House. "All I ask," he says on the stump about his birthplace, "give us one more chance." Credit: STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images The Thin Man Mike Huckabee, 52, former governor, preacher, former Christian broadcaster, rock guitarist, might be best known for having shed 110 pounds. On the left is how he appeared at the National Governors Association annual winter meeting in Washington D.C. in February, 2003.

On the right, he is at the same meeting in February, 2005. Now a health crusader, he wrote a book titled "Quit Digging Your Grave With A Knife And Fork" Credit: GETTY IMAGES/Alex Wong "Chuck Norris Approved" He is becoming known as well for an anarchic sense of humor. In his first commercial of the 2008 campaign, he explains his "plan for securing the border. Two words: Chuck Norris." The well-known martial artist and actor then praises Huckabee as a "principled, authentic conservative" - pro-gun, anti-IRS - while Huckabee praises his endorser as well: "There is no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard, only another fist." Credit: CBS Bible reader Michael Dale Huckabee was born on August 24, 1955, the son of a firefighter and a gas company clerk. He has said that he is the first male in his family ever to have graduated even from high school. He graduated from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas and then attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas. Credit: Huckabee campaign Baptist Preacher For 12 years, Huckabee served as a minister in churches in Arkansas.

"I first became politically active because of abortion," he says on his campaign Web site, "when I helped pass Arkansas' Unborn Child Amendment, which requires the state to do whatever it legally can to protect life." The first election he won was as Arkansas lieutenant governor in 1993. Credit: Huckabee Campaign "Whitewater" Was Good To Him Kenneth Starr, the special counsel to the Whitewater investigation, appeared at a press conference in 1996, after Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker was convicted of fraud. Tucker (Clinton's successor as governor) eventually resigned his office, and Huckabee became governor. Two years laters, he was elected to a full four-year term. Credit: Travis HEYING/AFP/Getty Images Married At 18 In 1974, after his freshman year of college, Huckabee married his high school sweetheart, Janet McCain. She currently works for the American Red Cross in Arkansas, helping to coordinate disaster preparedness. The Huckabees have three grown children.

Credit: Huckabee campaign Married At 49 (To Same Wife) In 2005, Mike and Janet Huckabee participated in a ceremony called a "covenant marriage," an option offered to couples, which as governor he signed into law, that makes it legally more difficult to split up. The governor invited several hundred couples to be involved in the ceremony. Credit: Mario Villafuerte/Getty Images Opponent of Abortion, Civil Unions Protesters gathered outside the arena in Little Rock where the covenant marriage ceremony was being held. Huckabee opposes civil unions, and supports amending the United States Constitution so that it bans abortion and bans same-sex marriages. He also has said "I do not necessarily buy into" the theory of evolution. Credit: Mario Villafuerte/Getty Images Governor In 2002, as part of a campaign marathon of 15 states in five days, President George W. Bush visited the Arkansas Regional Airport to help re-elect (the pre-diet) Huckabee. In his decade as governor, he focused on improving education and health, especially children's. He also passed a law that would allow children of illegal immigrants to attend college, for which he has been attacked.

Credit: TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Presidential Candidate Huckabee announced for president on "Meet The Press" in January, 2007. Asked about previous comments that he would "take this nation back for Christ," he said " I don't want to make people think that I'm going to replace the Capitol dome with a steeple...[P]eople of faith do need to exercise their sense of responsibility toward education, toward health, toward the environment." Credit: GETTY IMAGES/Brendan Smialowski Guitar-Playing Republican Dude When Huckabee joined nine other candidates at the Republican Party of Iowa's Abraham Lincoln Unity Dinner in April, 2007, he had a singular way of attracting attention: He got up and played bass with his band, Capitol Offense. Credit: GETTY IMAGES/Scott Olson Elvis, Arkansas, Musical Instrument...Hmm Huckabee, second from left, invited an Elvis impersonator to join his band, Capital Offense, on the stage at a campaign event in Ames, Iowa, on Aug 11, 2007 - thus showing one more thing he has in common with his fellow baptist, instrument-playing Hope-born politician.

Credit: AP Photo Tour Arkansas Town at Center of Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee Rivalry | MyCentralOregon.com Contest Rules Tour Arkansas Town at Center of Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee Rivalry Ida Astute/ABC/Pete Souza/ The White House(HOPE, Ark.) — Mike Huckabee grew up less than a five-minute drive from Bill Clinton’s childhood home, but he doesn’t hold any warm or neighborly feelings toward the former president. The two political stars were born in the same hospital, attended the same kindergarten and went to the same elementary school — although nearly a decade apart. The men, who both served as governors of Arkansas, never lived in Hope at the same time, but both have used their small hometown to their political benefit. As Huckabee, 59, kicks off his second run for the White House, he’s making his southwestern Arkansas upbringing a centerpiece of his campaign, much as Clinton did in his 1992 presidential run. But now the two men from Hope are pitted against each other with both Huckabee and Hillary Clinton seeking the same office. Huckabee returned to his birthplace earlier this week to announce that he, too, hopes to one day become president.

In announcing his candidacy, Huckabee invoked memories of learning to swim, ride a bike, handle a firearm and tell “the difference between right and wrong.” He said he “grew up in a small town that was far removed from the power, the money and the influence that runs this country.” So, how did such a small town produce two Arkansas governors — one of whom became president and one who aspires to follow him to Pennsylvania Avenue? “Before Clinton, Hope was known for growing the largest watermelons in the world,” Dennis Ramsey, the city’s mayor since 1993 and for several years in the 1980s, told ABC News. “I guess it’s something in the watermelons. That answer’s as good as any.” But even with its famous fruit, it was Bill Clinton who put Hope on the map. Clinton is beloved there: A major thoroughfare bears his name, his first home is a tourist attraction run by the National Park Service, and the town’s visitor center has his life on display. But Huckabee’s familiarity is just as real, according to Ramsey, who also runs three bank branches in the area. “When he walks on the street, he knows most people by name,” Ramsey said.

The mayor, who seemed to know most people himself when he stopped at a downtown burger joint one day this week, remembered a young Huckabee walking to the fire station to see his firefighter father. Ramsey’s stepfather was also a fireman. At the firehouse, the assistant fire chief said he used to work with Huckabee’s brother-in-law at a nearby steel joist plant; several people cited similar extended-family ties to Huckabee or his wife. “Everybody likes him,” the fireman, Carroll Schmitt, said, calling Huckabee a “good Christian.” “There’ll be real strong support,” he added. A short film about Clinton’s childhood in Arkansas played at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, portraying him as a product of the middle class. Clinton memorably closed his remarks at the convention by declaring, “I still believe in a place called Hope.” “When he made that statement, ‘I still believe in a place called Hope,’ our world changed,” Ramsey said. “For a time, Hope became the center of the universe.” Huckabee’s campaign has already taken a page out of the Clinton notebook. A video that played before Huckabee’s announcement Tuesday trumped what it portrayed as his uphill battle against “Bill Clinton’s Arkansas” when he became governor.

Another showed Huckabee driving past his old house, the fire station and Clinton’s boyhood home — “we won’t spend a lot of time here,” he says with a chuckle. “I hope I never forget where I come from,” he says, sitting outside the home. “I hope I never forget this porch. I hope I never forget what it’s like to live in a neighborhood where neighbors know about each other and care about each other.” But Huckabee’s ascension was, in fact, enabled by Clinton’s own rise. When then-governor Clinton became president, Arkansas’ lieutenant governor became governor and Huckabee ran in a special election for the office, after losing a U.S. Senate run. He served for several years before rising to the governorship when the previous governor resigned amid scandal. Clinton, 68, moved to nearby Hot Springs, Arkansas, at age 7, two years before Huckabee was born. Huckabee, on the other hand, lived in town through college and met his wife there. He returns regularly for high school reunions, according to the mayor. Founded in 1875 along just-built railroad tracks, Hope boasts a population of around 10,500.

It’s a low-to-middle income place with a diverse economy — poultry and steel joist plants and a large-scale bakery are big employers. It is about 43 percent black, 34 percent white and 21 percent Hispanic, according to 2010 U.S. Census data, with neighborhoods still partly delineated along racial lines decades after integration, Ramsey said. While much in Hope hasn’t changed over the years, Huckabee’s campaign comes after a marked recent shift in the area toward the Republican Party. Statewide, the last time a Democratic presidential candidate received Arkansans’ electoral votes was in the 1990s, when Clinton was running. Ramsey, the mayor, said he’s an independent who has never endorsed a candidate for office. But he said he was grateful for the notoriety and economic “shot in the arm” Clinton’s win gave Hope and recognized the uniqueness of potentially claiming two presidents as native sons. “Not many towns,” he said, “can say they’re the birthplace of a president.” Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

Search: Huckabee Biography • Born: Michael Dale Huckabee on Wednesday August 24th, 1955 • Mike Huckabee is 61 years old. • Mike Huckabee was born in Hope, Arkansas to Mae Elder (1925-1999) and Dorsey Wiles Huckabee (1923-1996) Huckabee Ancestry • On the 24th of August 1955, Michael Dale 'Mike' Huckabee was born to Dorsey Wiles Huckabee and May Elder in the town of Hope, Arkansas, the same place where Bill Clinton was born nine years later. • Huckabee's father held two jobs, as a fire-fighter and car mechanic while his mother worked as a clerk in a local gas company to support the four-member family. • Huckabee once said about his dad, "he was one of those guys who lifted things, who worked with his hands, and got his hands real dirty.

I think he had grime and grease all over them as long as he lived." • Remembering and oft quoting the tiny rental house the family lived in, Huckabee says, "I am a generation away from abject poverty and I know it." • Huckabee's mother, May Elder, was the oldest of seven children who had no other option but to quit school and take care of her younger siblings while her parents toiled hard, day and night. • Being born to a blue-collar family, Huckabee was the first male in his entire family lineage to have graduated from high school. He often says, "My father had never finished high school, nor his father, nor his." • On setting a new standard in his family, Huckabee's father is said to have chuckled, "Son, don't look too far up the family tree. There are some things there that might embarrass you." • Though Huckabee lacked in pedigree, his humble Southern roots and pastoral credentials gave him a better understanding of the problems of the working class in America.

Huckabee's Books • Character is the Issue: How People With Integrity Can Revolutionize America • Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence (co-written with George Grant) • Living Beyond Your Lifetime: How to be Intentional About the Legacy You Leave • Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork • From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STEPS to Restoring America's Greatness • Character Makes a Difference: Where I'm From, Where I've Been, and What I Believe • Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America • A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories That Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit • Can't Wait Till Christmas (co-written with Jed Henry) • A Simple Government: Twelve Things We Really Need from Washington • Foreword My Story Your Story His Story by Larry Toller Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, one of the dark horses for next year’s Presidential Election, is an established author in his own right, with nine books to his credit. The former pastor’s work has an eclectic feel to it, with topics as diverse as dieting, Christmas, teen violence and of course, politics.

His latest offering, which will be released in about three weeks, timed to coincide with the run up to the Republican primaries, which according to its publishers, offers a practical and non-partisan approach to the current issues that is afflicting the country. Huckabee Career • Arkansas Governor, 1996-2007; • Arkansas Lt. Governor, 1993-1996; • Former Chairman, Southern Governors' Association; • Former Chairman, Southern Regional Education Board; • Former Chairman, Southern Growth Policies Board; • Former Chairman, Southern Technology Council; • Former Chairman, Southern International Trade Council; • Former Chairman, Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission Huckabee Childhood • Mike Huckabee grew up in a rented house in the tiny little town of Hope, Arkansas, where people always asked, "do you really think that some obscure, unknown governor born in Hope has any chance to be president of the United States" - until Bill Clinton put their question to rest. • He spent his entire childhood in Hope and his formative years were influenced by his father, mother, sister and the community in Hope where "people kind of looked after each other".

• Though there was little money and influence found in Hope, the young Huckabee never had a defeatist attitude. • He had a modest childhood and still recalls the old days when his family used scratchy lava soap, humorously adding, "It wasn't until I got to college that I realized showers were not supposed to hurt." • An eight-year old Huckabee, along with his father, went to see Governor Orville Faubus, "deliver a speech and dedicate a lake". This is perhaps one of the chapters in his life that heralded the illustrious political future that awaited little Huckabee. • From a very young age Huckabee had been a smooth talker with the dynamism of a natural leader and a heightened political sensibility. He once said, "I was a true-blue, conservative, family-oriented young Republican." • He preached his first sermon at the age of fifteen and wanted to grow up to be a rock star. Even today, he never misses a chance to pick up his guitar and strum to the beats of his music band 'Capitol Offense'.

Huckabee Education • Mike Huckabee attended Hope High School, in Hope, Arkansas • In 1973, Huckabee attended Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas and graduated magna cum laude, completing his four-year bachelor's degree in Religion in just two-and-a-half years. • Following his graduation, he enrolled at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas for one academic year after which he had to drop out of seminary in order to take up a job in Christian broadcasting. • He worked for several years for televangelist James Robinson and later served as a minister at Baptist churches in Pine Bluff and Texarkana, Arkansas, and as President of two Christian TV operations. • Huckabee has two honorary doctoral degrees: the Doctor of Humane Letters received from John Brown University in 1991 and the Doctor of Laws from Ouachita Baptist University in 1992. • This Pastor-turned-Politician is also an Honorary Member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. • While in college, Huckabee worked during the week as a rock 'n roll DJ at the local Radio station in Hope and then spent the weekends preaching at a Baptist Church.

• As a young man, Huckabee dreamed of a career in media or public service. It was by accident that he became a pastor for 12 years. Huckabee remembers, "In 1980, a church in Arkansas asked me to come and speak for them, and I did. Then they asked me to come back and speak again, and I did. And after about four months, they said, why don't you just stay? And that's how I became a pastor" Huckabee Languages • Mike Huckabee speaks no language other than English but this former Arkansas Governor and Southern Baptist preacher hopes to speak the language of the voters. His electrifying oratory elevated him as the only Republican governor of Arkansas to be elected to two four-year terms. • He learned to read koine Greek (the dialect in which the New Testament is written) while studying to be a Baptist pastor but cannot speak the Greek language. • Huckabee's early adult life wallowed in the communications business. At the young age of 21, he became director of a Christian advertising agency in Texas and by 25, he made his living by ghostwriting books, designing church publications and writing ads.

"He had a great sense of humor that came out on the radio, in his sermons, and in the dorm room with the guys," Huckabee's college roommate Rick Caldwell commented. Huckabee and the Military • Mike Huckabee had not voluntarily signed up for military service and came of age as draft was ending. A brief explanation on why a stint in the army is missing in Huckabee?s resume, states the reason as 'flat feet'. • Huckabee had all the traits of a natural leader and longed to be of service to his people but his flat feet became a roadblock. "These flat feet have bothered me all my life" he is quoted as saying. • When he was a freshman in college, Huckabee had enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) and looked forward to serving in combat. On noticing his flat feet, the ROTC Director discouraged him from joining the army. Huckabee remembers, "He told me there was no point in my continuing because the army wouldn't have me anyway." • The Vietnam War came to an end, thus ending Huckabee's desire to pursue a career in the military.

Perfectly understanding that every chapter in his life had been God's doing, Huckabee is a wee bit cheerless when he says, "My flat feet ended what I'm sure would have been a heralded military career in the post-Vietnam 1970s." Huckabee Religion • Mike Huckabee is a Baptist. • Mike Huckabee attends church at Rock Creek in Little Rock, Arkansas. • Huckabee strongly believes in the infallibility of the Bible, as a result of which he rejects evolution. • As a teenage boy he led his own Southern Baptist group at the Beach Street First Baptist Church in Texarkana. • In 1989 he was elected the president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention and the youngest person to hold this office. • Huckabee is quoted by The Jewish Week as saying, "I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives." • Apart from the eight years Huckabee spent as the Governor he was extremely involved with the church and affairs of religion. • Huckabee started off his religious career as a staffer for James Robison, a very well known evangelist.

• In the book that he wrote called "Character Makes a Difference" he says The Ten Commandments are divided into two sections--the vertical laws dealing with man's relationship with God and the horizontal laws dealing with man's relationship with others. Huckabee Siblings • Mike Huckabee is the younger of two children. His sister Pat has been a teacher in Arkansas for over 30 years. Support our website with Google Plus Mike Huckabee poised to make another White House bid - CNNPolitics.com 14 of 15 Photos: Mike Huckabee's political career Huckabee visits the West Bank settlement of Beit El, near Ramallah, on August 18, 2009. He issued controversial statements in support of Israeli settlements. Hide Caption 15 of 15 Huckabee peaked early that year. After the Hawkeye State, he notched disappointing finishes in other early states and his fundraising dried up. He dropped out of the race and landed a show on Fox News. He also released a book entitled "Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America." It landed on the New York Times best seller list.

Since then he's written four more, including his most recent manifesto "God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy," which hit shelves earlier this year. He's found other ways to make money, too, including a stint doing infomercials for a questionable diabetes treatment. If he's come a long way from Iowa, Huckabee has come even further from his modest, boyhood home in Hope. "I hate to say it, but I mean, give me a break. You live in a $5 million house in the panhandle," said Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. "He says, 'I live in the redneck Riviera. Those $5 million houses on the beach? Those ain't redneck." The house isn't quite $5 million. Huckabee primarily resides in a six-bedroom, beachfront home on the shore in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, worth about $3 million, according to property records. He also has a home in North Little Rock, Ark., valued at about $500,000. But Huckabee maintains a devoted following, particularly among evangelicals, Reed said. "There is a deep reservoir of affection for Mike Huckabee among evangelical voters," Reed said.

"My sense is people of faith hold him in very high regard, and he connects with these voters unlike anyone I have seen in my career. He will be a force to be reckoned with in 2016." Polls Polls show Huckabee is well known and well liked among Republicans, no doubt helped along by his weekly Fox News show that eventually came to draw 1.3 million viewers. When Republicans ranked which GOP contenders cared most about people like them and which shared their values, Huckabee came in second behind former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in both categories in an April CNN/ORC poll. Huckabee is laying the groundwork to expand his appeal beyond evangelical voters to low-income and working families, in part by highlighting his own humble roots. His dad was a fireman and mechanic, while his mother was an office worker. "Power and money and political influence have left a lot of Americans lagging behind. They work hard, lift heavy things and sweat through their clothes grinding out a living, but they can't seem to get ahead or in some cases, even stay even, " Huckabee said. "My parents were like that." Clinton As for facing off against the so-called Clinton machine, it's sure to be part of his pitch.

"I challenged the deeply entrenched political machine that ran this state," Huckabee said Tuesday. But it's a stretch to say Huckabee faced the Clintons head on. In 1993, Huckabee ran for Arkansas lieutenant governor at a time when Democrats dominated the state and Bill Clinton had recently won the White House. He campaigned -- and won -- under the slogan "unplug the machine and empower the people." But there were moments when he worked closely with the Clintons, too. In 2005, Huckabee and Bill Clinton stood alongside one another, sharing their mutual battles with weigh loss, as part of a joint initiative to combat childhood obesity. "I don't have a global foundation or a taxpayer funded paycheck to live off of. I don't come from a family dynasty, but a working family," Huckabee said in a dig at Hillary Clinton and many of his fellow Republicans. "I grew up blue collar and not blue blood." ​ Huckabee's aides are working to ensure his 2016 bid isn't as brief as his previous run. Advisers said they will hustle to rebuild his support in Iowa, and they are lining up high-dollar fundraisers to help sustain a campaign for the long haul.

READ: Getting personal, Republicans talk faith in Iowa "The key is what kind of resources do you have beyond Iowa," said Bob Vander Plaats, chief executive of the social conservative organization The Family Leader in Iowa. After years in the public eye as a former presidential candidate and Fox News personality, "I don't think he can come in with $500,000 and say, 'I'm a real candidate,'" Vander Plaats added. Gidley declined to name the donors who have pledged to support Huckabee, but there are signs Team Huckabee is not bluffing. Ronnie Cameron, the chief executive of an Arkansas-based poultry producer who has given millions to conservatives, said he would back Huckabee if he jumps in the race. Huckabee's family is all but saying he will run. He is already scheduled to appear at a series of "Factories, Farms & Freedom" events in Iowa in the days following the announcement. "At the end of the day he did feel called to be in the race and our family is supportive of that," Huckabee Sanders said. JUST WATCHED

Question: Hope, Arkansas is the birthplace of two well-known politicians. One is Mike Huckabee. Who is the other?
Answer: Bill Clinton