"Huck and Chuck" show adds punch to campaign

By Ed Stoddard

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Martial arts guru and actor Chuck Norris is relishing one of his toughest roles yet: helping to propel Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee into the White House.

Norris has become an improbable campaign side-kick of the former Arkansas governor, a fellow devout Christian who surprisingly won the Iowa caucus kicking off the state-by-state party nomination process for the November presidential vote.

Norris, known for his action films and police TV show "Walker, Texas Ranger", says a group of young conservative bloggers brought Huckabee to his attention and he was struck by his ideas, including a proposal to replace all income tax with an across-the-board consumption tax.

"What sold me on Mike Huckabee is the message that he put across. I've felt that our system has been broken for a long time, our tax system," he told Reuters while taking a break from the campaign trail in New Hampshire, which holds its own primary contest on Tuesday.

The 67-year-old Norris says he decided to write an article of support for Huckabee -- a man he says he didn't know three months ago -- in his weekly column on the conservative weekly internet news service WorldDailyNet.com.

HUCK AND CHUCK

Huckabee's people then contacted him and the "Huck and Chuck" duo was born. It quickly became a quirky sideshow to the campaign.

The pair did some light-hearted spots on YouTube at Norris' Texas ranch: "Mike Huckabee ad: Chuck Norris approved".