As in Iowa, where he won the Jan. 3 caucuses, Huckabee is rousing pastors to marshal their flocks for him. He pitches himself as someone who not only shares their views against abortion and gay marriage but who actually comes from their ranks.
Huckabee has the edge in South Carolina polls after his Iowa caucus win. Polls in Michigan, which votes tomorrow, have shown Huckabee running in third place, behind Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain of Arizona, winner of the New Hampshire primary last week.
Yesterday, Huckabee avoided politics entirely, instead preaching about humility and trusting in Jesus to open the gates of heaven.
"The criteria to get into heaven is you have to be not good, but perfect. That's the real challenge in it," he said at First Baptist North Spartanburg, a megachurch with 2,500 members.
"On that day, when I pull up, I'll be asked, 'Do you have what it takes to get in?' " Huckabee said. "And if I ask, 'Well, what does it take to get in?' 'Gotta be perfect.'
"Well, I'm afraid I don't have that. But you know what, I won't be there alone that day. Somebody is going to be with me. His name is Jesus, and he's promised that he would never leave me or forsake me," he said.
Asked by reporters later if he thinks only Christians will go to heaven, Huckabee declined to say. He often says that, as a minister, he joked that he doesn't even believe all Baptists are going to heaven.
"I'm going to stick to the things that make it critical for me to be president of the United States," Huckabee said yesterday. "I have deep convictions about who goes and who doesn't, but as far as who makes that decision, it isn't me, it's God. I'm going to leave that up to him."
He argued that the Constitution forbids a political candidate from being subjected to a religious litmus test. And he claimed to be the only candidate who gets asked about specific tenets of his faith.
However, Romney has also been asked about his Mormon faith. In fact, Romney got questions about his faith after Huckabee, in The New York Times, asked whether Mormons believe Jesus and the devil were brothers. Huckabee quickly apologized to Romney and said the quotes were taken out of context.
