Fire in the Belly

Still, like the man himself, Huckabee's chances at becoming president appear slim. He has a small fundraising base, no foreign-policy credentials and little name recognition outside of Arkansas and "the anti-obesity community." But Huckabee's résumé goes well beyond novelty. He's been rated one of the top governors in the country by entities that rate these things (Governing magazine, most recently) and won praise for his handling of the flood of Katrina evacuees into Arkansas from the bordering Gulf Coast states. He is antiabortion, pro-gun and popular among the religious right in his state. He is also commended as pragmatic and non-ideological by Democratic governors he has worked with at the NGA.

But Huckabee's signature issue is fitness and weight control, and his evangelism on these matters never strays far from his own example. He is the subject of one of those striking before-and-after photo sequences you see with ex-fat people -- like Jared, the guy in the Subway ads.

The "before" shot shows the hefty, multi-chinned governor seated before the Arkansas flag. The "after" reveals a grinning man with actual cheekbones, slim and recovered -- or recovering. The photos appear on the cover of Huckabee's 2005 self-help memoir, "Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork: A 12- Stop Program to End Bad Habits and Begin a Healthy Lifestyle." Huckabee dedicates the book to his wife, the former Janet McCain (their first date was for cheeseburgers), his three children and "the millions of children and adults who, like me, struggle every day with the addiction of eating too much and exercising too little and who have tried to change and cried because they couldn't."

People come up to Huckabee in airports and after speeches. They share testimonials, tell him how much weight they've lost, or how much their best friend's cousin has lost, or how much they're now walking every day.

People approach Jared, too. But Jared isn't a three-term governor who was scheduled to give a speech in Iowa yesterday evening and traveled to the state three times in 2005 and New Hampshire once. Fat chance of Jared running for president, in other words.

Huckabee, meantime, is weighing his options.

A Passion for Health

"People ask me all the time, 'Are you running?' " Huckabee says, laughing. "I say, yeah, I'm running. About 25 to 30 miles a week."

That's his way of deflecting the question that he says is "ridiculous" to ask now but that he -- like all politicians subjected to this "ridiculous" question -- is clearly flattered to be answering (or not answering).

It's just after 6 a.m. in the governor's mansion, and Huckabee, clad in running shorts, is stretching on the floor of his sugar-free kitchen. This is where Arkansas' low-fat official dinners are prepared -- with Splenda, whole grains, minimal starch and nothing fried. One of his chefs has lost 60 pounds, Huckabee boasts, while another has shed 20.

The third-term governor is preparing to run four miles. He was up at 4, exchanging e-mail with a nutritionist pal from Cornell, doing 35 minutes on the stationary bike, reading newspapers, drinking two cups of coffee. He is joined by a reporter, a photographer and press secretary Alice Stewart, a former news anchor who, before joining Huckabee's staff, helped train him for last March's Little Rock marathon. (Time: 4:38:32.)

While stretching, Huckabee pinballs from topic to topic:

· It's hard to eat well on the road, he says, especially during campaigns. He travels with a small cooler of snacks -- fruit, veggies, nothing with processed sugar -- which frees him from the starchy, sugary cornerstones of so much stump fare.