Mike Huckabee seemed right at home at the Iowa State Fair Thursday.
"Pork chop on a stick. Trust me. It's what's for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack," he told the audience at the Des Moines Register Soapbox, where presidential candidates can speak for up to 20 minutes.
The former governor of Arkansas, who won the 2008 Iowa Republican caucus, talked about his conservative agenda and his executive experience.
Huckabee was one of three candidates to speak on the fair’s first day. Democrats Jim Webb and Martin O’Malley also appeared.
O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, drew a standing room only crowd in sweltering heat. He spoke energetically and portrayed himself as the voice of a new generation.
"After you get a chance to meet everybody, you usually winnow down the field," said O’Malley, 52, an underdog in the race for the Democratic nomination. "In a Democratic Party that has a gravitational pull toward the future, that choice usually narrows down to a choice between the inevitable frontrunner who is inevitable right up until the first contest and the voice of a new generation who most of the country has not heard of before." Of his top rivals, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is 67 and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is 73.
O’Malley also talked about 15 goals for an O’Malley presidency, notably a bid to have America’s electricity grid running on renewable energy by 2050.
Webb, a former U.S. senator from Virginia, decried the role of big money in politics, urging listeners to change the system by electing him.
David Lightman: 202-383-6101, @lightmandavid
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