Mike Huckabee On His Show, Running for President, Sarah Palin and Pot

Former Arkansas governor and current Fox News Channel host Mike Huckabee gets profiled in a lengthy story in The New Yorker.

Much of the article is about his political aspirations and background, but the author, Ariel Levy, also talks a bit about Huckabee’s Fox News show and his comfort-level in front of the camera.

“Huckabee” has the aesthetics of a local-access show: the host ends every episode playing bass with his house band, the Little Rockers, which is composed of fellow Fox staffers. “What he does well is break the rules of cable news,” Bill Shine, the senior vice-president of the network, said. “The show is about him; it’s built around him, and not around the genre of cable news. Sometimes I look at the guest list and think, Wow, Neil Sedaka?”

Huckabee’s congeniality and humor have helped make him a regular on all sorts of programs, including shows like “The Colbert Report,” where many conservatives are wary of appearing.

While Huckabee has a great sense of humor for a politician, it is still sometimes a bit… odd. Take the following clip from FNC’s “Red Eye,” which has Huckabee commenting on Sarah Palin’s stance on drug enforcement:

“After Sarah Palin made those comments, she then produced a gram of coke from her purse, and did line after line on the glass table,” said Huckabee, adding “this is gonna be on YouTube, I can feel it coming on.”

Right you are governor, the clip (which also features a dancing baby) is after the jump.

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