Huckabee speaks without speechifying

LA Times - Some compare him to Reagan in the way he spins tales, especially stories about everyday people.

If Huckabee's campaign has a secret weapon, it could well be the candidate's gifts as a communicator. Using Southern charm and storytelling, Huckabee's stump speech is more entertainment than oratory. Sharp jabs are cloaked by a smile and a joke, and offered in a cadence reminiscent of a warm-talking preacher -- which he has been -- and a radio host -- which he also has been.

Huckabee enters the room, his name on a banner hung behind a lectern, but he doesn't use the lectern as anything more than a place to rest his arm while he talks.

Huckabee is looking for an intimate engagement with a room full of people -- up to 200... In a speech in Coralville, Huckabee stressed his views on the sanctity of life.

'The sanctity of human life goes to the heart and to the soul of our civilization,' Huckabee said. 'Every human life has intrinsic worth and value, whether it's in the womb or whether it's in the hospital bed late in one's 80s.'

'He has the same values that we have,' said Don Phillips, 74, of Norwalk, who saw Huckabee speak in a packed Des Moines shopping mall community room. 'If they're going to run down his Christianity, that's their problem, not his.'