Huckabee's Preacher Years

Does anybody--besides conservative scrooges like Bob Novak--have a negative word about Mike Huckabee? Today's Concord Monitor explores Huckabee's years as an Arkansas preacher and finds glowing reviews all around, from his popularity on church TV, to his ability to revive a graying Texarkana congregation, to his success riding moderate support to become the youngest-ever president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, even though Huckabee is a theological conservative.

A water-to-wine lead vignette sets the tone for the rest of the piece:

Mike Huckabee was never about fire and brimstone. As a preacher, he was buoyant. The first time he took to the pulpit, as a 16-year-old preaching on a Sunday night, he turned water into wine. Sort of.

"He had a clear bottle of water, a gallon jug of water, and he turned it red," said Don Still, who grew up with Huckabee in the small city of Hope, Ark. "He talked about how God cleanses our soul. He was probably in the 11th or 12th grade, and he was probably taking chemistry and learned it in chemistry."