Fire in the Belly

As an example, Katz says Huckabee was originally against mandatory physical education requirements and curbing the sale of junk food in school vending machines -- believing that those decisions should be left to school districts. But he was eventually persuaded otherwise. "I accept that Mike has a political constituency to worry about," says Katz, who corresponds regularly with Huckabee. "If he alienates the food industry and his political base and he finds himself out of power, what good does it do us?

"If you're asking me if I think he's gone far enough, I would say no," Katz adds. "But I'm pleased that he keeps giving me the opportunity to tell him what I think."

Katz and others are quick to say that Huckabee's greatest contribution has been as a public advocate. Fighting fat is "clearly an issue he's become synonymous with nationally," says Bill Richardson, the Democratic governor of New Mexico, a yo-yo dieter for much of his public life (he's now on a liquid diet). "The good thing about Huckabee is that he doesn't say, 'Bill, you ought to try this, or try that, here's my book,' " Richardson says. "He doesn't proselytize. I appreciate that."

"Clearly, the weight loss story is worth telling and hearing, especially for Southern males," says Mac McLarty, Clinton's former chief of staff, who knew Huckabee growing up in Hope. "Eating cheap food on a family budget is something familiar to a lot of people in this country. It's something that Huckabee has credibility on."

Huckabee often tells about his lower-middle-class upbringing as the son of a firefighter. His household followed a familiar economic model across America today: how to eat food with the highest caloric content for the lowest price. His family couldn't afford nice cars, nice clothes or vacations. "But we could always afford a second helping of mashed potatoes, with lots of gravy," he says. "That was the one way we could always indulge ourselves."

Huckabee will often wax nostalgic, almost romantic about food. The smell of fried chicken, homemade biscuits and gravy brings him back to a time of safety and pleasure and "the level of security I knew" as a child, he says.

For a Christian family, food was also an acceptable weakness, as opposed to vices such as drugs or alcohol. Indeed, people who know Huckabee are wont to describe his revamped body in terms of a religious imperative. "Mike will do what the Lord leads him to do," says John Benjamin, a longtime friend of Huckabee's and a member of his Baptist congregation during the 1980s.

"I consider this a matter of personal stewardship," adds Huckabee, a former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. "My body does not belong to me. It belongs to the Lord."

As part of his better-health regimen, Huckabee underwent what he calls "nutritional counseling" through a program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. The process was, as much as anything, a journey of self-discovery through the lens of what he named as his "food addiction."

Even so, he conveys no sense of victimhood. "McDonald's doesn't make people fat," Huckabee says. "Individuals overeating makes people fat." This is akin to the familiar slogan among gun control opponents who say that "guns don't kill, people do."

"Everyone in America loves to blame someone else for what they're responsible for," Huckabee says. He is obviously passionate but careful not to force-feed his message.

"I don't want to be the sugar sheriff or the grease police," Huckabee says. "I don't want to be in a position where I tell you what to eat. You want a doughnut, have a doughnut."