Fire in the Belly

He's offering you a doughnut?

"Well, no," he says. "Not exactly."

The Running Governor

Huckabee says he's obliged to preach the good word for good eating, given his own experience, and his status as a sitting governor.

Or, a few minutes later, a running governor.

He gives Jet another smooch on the head ("Mmmm-wah") and is out the door.

Conversations while jogging can be especially fruitful. Camaraderie is built, endorphins released, defenses dropped.

And after a while, Huckabee is saying things that politicians probably shouldn't say. Like this:

"I keep hearing about these bands that have girls throwing their underwear onstage," he says, bemoaning that Capital Offense doesn't have any groupies. "But given our demographics, we're more likely to have old men throwing their Depends at us."

(Stewart, who is accompanying him on his run/interview -- befitting her dual credentials as both a press secretary and marathon trainer -- emphasizes that the governor is kidding about the Depends-throwing.)

Huckabee is presented with a hypothetical scenario: Let's say he is president and has a scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin is running late and it might conflict with his designated exercise time. Does Huckabee postpone the run or the meeting?

"I wouldn't go to that place just yet," Huckabee says, "that place" being the White House. "Nice try, though."

Another scenario: Huckabee is confronting a triple conflict -- a Cabinet meeting, a 10-mile run and a jam session with the Rolling Stones, all scheduled for the same time. What does he do?

"I get up real early to do the run," Huckabee says. "Then I jam with the Stones. And then I spend the entire Cabinet meeting gloating about how I jammed with the Stones."

The run also yields these NutraSweetened morsels:

· Huckabee says he carries a cell phone during long runs in case state business intrudes, which it does occasionally. He used to run with pepper spray and almost used it once when a dog attacked him, biting through Huckabee's pants, though not his leggings underneath.

· He will occasionally splurge, like in Philadelphia recently. He stopped at Gino's, the famous cheesesteak place where John Kerry made the mistake of asking for Swiss cheese on his. Huckabee had not heard about this outrage.

"You're kidding me," Huckabee says. "He should have known better than that."

A few blocks later, Huckabee's run takes him to the Clinton library, on the banks of the Arkansas River. He strikes a stately pose in the dawn sunlight and -- symbolism alert -- is framed by the library on one side and golden arches on the other, looming across the river.