Huckabee ran for White House on wing and a prayer

DALLAS (Reuters) - Mike Huckabee shook up the Republican Party establishment with an improbable run for its presidential nomination that energized the party's evangelical Christian base but failed to attract moderates beyond it.

Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, stayed alive as better known rivals dropped by the wayside but finally had to fold up his campaign on Tuesday as Arizona Sen. John McCain marched through the state-by-state voting to become the party's candidate in the November election.

From pheasant shoots in Iowa fields to sermons in packed churches, the affable former Baptist preacher often seemed to be running his cash-strapped campaign on a wing and a prayer.

But he proved a formidable campaigner with a folksy Southern style. An eloquent speaker with a sharp sense of humor, he wooed crowds by cracking jokes, playing electric bass guitar and bantering on stage with martial arts guru Chuck Norris.

His staunch opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage mixed with a big dose of economic populism enabled him to reach centrist evangelical leaders concerned about the poor while simultaneously connecting with the culture warriors of the old "Religious Right."

And his blue collar roots and fondness for hunting and fishing went down well in the rural U.S. heartland.

Huckabee's high point was in Iowa on January 3 when he won the first of the state-by-state presidential nominating contests, beating a well-oiled and heavily funded machine run by the wealthy former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

Conservative Christian voters handed him that crucial victory and Huckabee cast himself in Biblical terms as a humble David taking on a political Goliath, frequently telling his Iowa supporters that Romney was outspending him 20 to one.

But even though he won several more state contests, he failed to effectively broaden his appeal beyond evangelical Christians who divided their loyalties among him, McCain and Romney until the latter pulled out.

Huckabee stayed on long after it was apparent that McCain would be the victor because, he claimed, he put his faith in miracles rather than math.

MAN FROM HOPE

Huckabee was born on August 24, 1955 in Hope, Arkansas, which was also the birthplace of former President Bill Clinton. Huckabee said he did not know Clinton as a youth since the future president was older and had moved out of Hope.

Like Clinton, Huckabee served as governor of Arkansas. During his time in the state house between 1996 and 2007, he was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in 2003.

He went on a diet and exercise regime to lose 110 pounds (50 kg). He became a marathon runner and wrote a book about healthy living.

When he entered the Republican presidential race, pundits assigned him to the second tier of candidates even after he came in second in an Iowa straw poll in August 2007.

But with good humor, a winning personality and an energetic conservative supporters, Huckabee continued to run even as the big names in the party started dropping out.

The Huckabee machine included "homeschoolers" who volunteered for him in droves. Conservative Christians who "school" their children at home, they could easily be spotted at his campaign stops: mothers with long hair and home-made dresses and fathers with crew-cuts surrounded by mobs of children with Huckabee signs. They sometimes prayed aloud for his success.

But not all conservatives were enamored by Huckabee. The pro-business "Club for Growth" accused him of raising taxes and spending heavily while he was governor of Arkansas. And few Wall Street analysts took his proposal to replace the income tax with one on consumption seriously.

Huckabee had missteps along the way for which he got hammered in the media, such as when he suggested that illegal Pakistani immigrants were streaming across the Rio Grande.

That did little to damage him in the eyes of his ardent supporters who took critical press coverage of their man as evidence that he was stirring things up.

(Editing by David Wiessler))

(For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)