Fire in the Belly

· Like Clinton, Huckabee is a musician -- he plays bass guitar in a rock band called Capital Offense. He once played a gig with REO Speedwagon, Grand Funk Railroad and Willie Nelson.

· While Clinton famously said he didn't inhale marijuana, Huckabee says he's never tasted beer but smelled it once. "And it smelled horrible." And that was that.

At which point the governor gives his black Labrador, Jet, a kiss on the head. " Mmmm-wah."

And then he starts talking about high school students having heart attacks.

"You could see this in 10 years," he says. "Imagine it, 18-year-olds dropping dead in the classroom."

Now there's a real pick-me-up to start your morning.

Huckabee says that's where the nation is headed if the "obesity epidemic" continues apace. "It's not a pretty picture out there," he says, describing kids, nearly all of them overweight, who have developed Type 2 diabetes and are getting treatment at Arkansas Children's Hospital. "You never saw this 15 years ago," he says. He says it's a great bet that these kids will start having vision problems and heart attacks, renal failure and kidney dialysis by the time they're 40. And they will "never live to see 50."

The governor once faced an ominous date with 50 himself. But since his "transformation" in his late forties, Huckabee has touted nutrition and fitness with the zeal of a convert.

He launched the "Healthy Arkansas" initiative to promote better eating and exercise habits in one of the country's most obese populations. The initiative grants time off for state employees who stay healthy, not just those who get sick. It also allows workers to take a paid half-hour each day for exercise. "We give employees time to go out and hurt themselves during the day," he says of cigarette breaks. "Not only do we lose productivity but we increase the likelihood of their getting sick. But if you want to take care of yourself, we say do it on your own dime. Now what makes sense about that?"

Healthy Arkansas deals mostly in small-scale health incentives: State employees who undergo an assessment to measure their risky health behaviors are given monthly discounts of as much as $20 from their health insurance premiums. And any worker who wants one is given a pedometer to measure the steps taken in a day (the governor's office held a contest in which the person who takes the most steps in a month gets a parking space near the entrance -- which would seem to be an incentive for less walking).

In keeping with his basic conservatism, Huckabee couches his campaign in terms of personal responsibility, not government regulations.

Public health experts have urged Huckabee to go further -- to push for marketing restrictions on junk food, for instance. But while he's been reluctant to impose government mandates and standards, Huckabee is also praised for his openness to the views of nutritionists and public health advocates. "I think his policy approach to the obesity epidemic is a work in progress," says David Katz, an associate professor at Yale's School of Public Health who met Huckabee 1 1/2 years ago at a "summit on obesity" in Williamsburg.