Mike Huckabee would later write about that day in 1996 as his ``crucible moment.''

Jim Guy Tucker, the Democratic governor of Arkansas and a newly convicted felon, was reneging on his earlier pledge to resign. His I'm-staying-after-all phone call came as Huckabee, a Republican and then lieutenant governor, was rehearsing the speech he had planned for later that day, when he expected to become the state's chief executive.

What followed was a brief constitutional crisis in Little Rock. Huckabee teamed with Democrats to confront Tucker in a daylong showdown. It made him a momentary hero for taking a firm position -- that it was time for Tucker to go -- and won the new governor praise for his grace in awkward circumstances.

''Some of us want to be bitter,'' Huckabee would say after finally being sworn in. ``I don't know what could be gained. What's done is done.''

So emerged the self-help politician.

''Leaders never ask others what they're unwilling to do themselves,'' he said in an interview.

Never shy about his background as a Baptist minister, Huckabee regularly promoted conservative social issues even as he dueled regularly with the state's ethics commission about his habit of accepting lavish gifts. Strongly pro-gun, he boasted that he was the first governor to have a concealed carry permit.

POLITICIAN OF FAITH, FLEXIBILITY

The facts don't add up into a neat political archetype. Rather, Huckabee's record is that of an openly religious man who periodically injects his faith into politics and of a conservative Republican who's willing at times to make government bigger.

He beefed up Arkansas' pre-kindergarten and insisted on arts education. He repaved state highways and greatly expanded health insurance for children. With nearly every big issue, he lobbied for tax increases, though he cut smaller taxes, too. Huckabee now has taken a no-new-taxes pledge.

''He's a flexible politician,'' said Jay Barth, a co-author of Arkansas Politics and Government. ``He's a pragmatic politician.''

In Arkansas, he's almost universally described as a man of great energy and a public speaker the likes of which the state hasn't seen since Bill Clinton.

Self-transformed from flabby to trim marathon man, his Christianity lies not far beneath the surface.

Michael Dale Huckabee was born Aug. 24, 1955, in Hope, Ark., the son of a firefighter and a teacher. His was a humble upbringing, but he thrived.

Rich Caldwell, who would become a college roommate at Ouachita Baptist University and a lifelong friend, describes Huckabee as someone with clear ambition, deep faith and a work ethic that put peers to shame.

Next came Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Soon Huckabee was pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Pine Bluff, where he founded a broadcast television station that carried his church services.

By 1989, he was president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, and in 1992 he ran for the U.S. Senate against Dale Bumpers. The preacher was taking on a popular Democrat in a Democratic state.

Huckabee over-reached. He ran campaign ads comparing Bumpers to pornographers for his support of the National Endowment for the Arts. But voters knew Bumpers, a longtime Methodist Sunday school teacher, and the tactic backfired. Bumpers won easily.

TUMULT IN ARKANSAS

Clinton's departure to the White House set dominoes tumbling, and Huckabee went to running for lieutenant governor. He won narrowly, was reelected, and by 1996 seemed headed to a U.S. Senate seat.

Then came Tucker's conviction in the Whitewater scandal that dogged the Clintons. Huckabee dumped his Senate campaign and moved into the governor's mansion. Through most of his decade in office he got along well with the lopsidedly Democratic Legislature.

But ethics charges hounded him.

He fought the state's ethics commission over gifts that were showered on him. In one year, he took in $110,000 worth of items.

Huckabee said the gifts were the result of friendships made outside public service.

Critics charged that they were essentially graft.

''If you compared the list of people who were giving him gifts and the list of people who were getting appointed,'' said Arkansas Ethics Commission Director Graham Sloan, ``there was a pretty good overlap.''

When Huckabee was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in 2003, he went on a diet and shed more than 100 pounds.

The weight loss gives a narrative to Huckabee's campaign. The story line suggests a man willing to recognize the errors of his ways and change.

''When he makes up his mind to do something,'' said Charles Barg, Huckabee's primary physician for many years, ``he's going to get it done.''

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