Town of Hope is home to presidential hopefuls

HOPE, Arkansas (Reuters) - Along Main Street in Hope, the small Arkansas town that was birthplace to former President Bill Clinton, storefronts are vacant and business is slow. It's hard to imagine what makes it produce presidential candidates.

A health clinic and other shops are shuttered, leaving a martial arts studio and a lonely cafe among the few businesses that haven't relocated to strip malls bordering the highway.

Unemployment is well above the national average in this blue-collar town of 11,000 people, tucked away in the low pine forests of southwest Arkansas, and local officials complain that too many jobs have moved overseas.

But as the presidential race intensifies ahead of the November election, many are marveling that the town has produced a Democrat who served two terms as president and now a Republican who is in the running for the White House.

Mike Huckabee, the 52-year-old former Republican governor and a Baptist preacher, grew up across town from the white foursquare house where Bill Clinton spent his early years.

Should Huckabee win the Republican nomination, he could face off in November against New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner and wife of the former president who is still popular in this largely rural, Democratic state.

Plenty of people have theories about why this has happened.

Some note that voters in Arkansas require an energetic style of politics from their candidates, who cut their teeth by shaking hands across the state, calling people by their first names and often signing up for watermelon-eating contests.

"That's why our political leaders tend to do really well -- geniality," said Bill Gwatney, chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party.

While Bill Clinton may be known as the king of political charisma, "obviously Huckabee's got some of that," he said.

Bitsy Carter, who runs a flower shop on Main Street with her parents, likes Huckabee's affable, folksy manner. She is also drawn to Huckabee's religious tone; he began preaching Baptist sermons as a young man in Hope.

"His being a Christian leader means a lot to the Bible belt," Carter said.

A few days after Christmas, holiday decorations are strewn across the lawn outside Huckabee's one-time home, a small brick building a few blocks east of Main Street. The fire station where his father worked is just down the way.

Huckabee went to school in Hope with his wife, Janet, and the couple were married after graduating high school.

"It's your typical small town that you'd find across America," said Janet Huckabee, who now lives in North Little Rock with her husband.

While Huckabee lacks the campaign machine and money that some other candidates have, his wife is optimistic the former governor's homespun message will win over voters.

"We don't take anything for granted. We will work until the last minute ... we mean business," she said.

Even residents who express pride in the town's most famous native sons scratch their heads when asked to make sense of why Hope might be propitious hometown for politicians.

John Henley, sitting in the rear of the machinery store his family has owned for more than 40 years, laughed. "It's in the water down here," he said.

(Editing by Lori Santos and Chris Wilson)