With his rise to the top tier of the Republican 2012 race, Herman Cain has seen the scrutiny of his policy positions increase dramatically, and it is his stance on (illegal?) abortion that stole the limelight and confounded voters this week. On Fox & Friends this morning, Mike Huckabee‘s weekly take turned to Cain, and he found the candidate’s stance to be “very pro-choice” despite the backtracking– possibly too pro-choice for the people of Iowa.

Maybe there’s something in the water now, or there was in 2008, but there seems to be a case of retroactive Romney Fever among conservatives who now think the former Massachusetts governor is the bastard offspring of Phil Donahue and Howard Zinn. The latest victim is conservative megastar Rush Limbaugh, who emphatically declared on Wednesday that “Mitt Romney is not a conservative,” but who, in 2008, said he embodied “all three legs of the conservative stool.”

Now that it appears the media is finally over the hill on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie 2012 speculation, the focus on the governor has shifted to what would happen if he actually ran, and naturally the “is Chris Christie too fat?” question emerges front and center. On last night’s Last Word, Lawrence O’Donnell asked his panel– campaign strategist Ed Rollins and columnist Jonathan Alter– what the odds were of Christie making a presidential bid with his figure intact. The consensus? Expect a diet if a campaign was on the horizon.

Well, someone has to address the elephant in the room. I know what you’re all thinking. It’s clear. Obviously, everyone knows the big problem with the GOP’s 2012 contender selection: There aren’t enough candidates! Fortunately, Mike Huckabee may have heard the call as sources have said that he is considering rejoining the race.

The big question here, of course, is whether this means there will be no more Ted Nugent duets or a lot more Ted Nugent duets?

Texas governor Rick Perry‘s performance at Thursday night’s Fox News/Google debate have many conservatives second-guessing their initial enthusiasm for the candidate– particularly his stances on immigration. It was not his ideas, but his delivery that concerned Mike Huckabee this morning on his regular Fox & Friends appearance, arguing that his apparent exhaustion proved Perry “is not prepared for the pressure of the presidential stage.”

Mike Huckabee‘s faith made up a significant part of his political identity during his 2008 Republican Presidential bid, and as such Huckabee came out this morning to defend the open airing of faith by other Republican candidates this time around. Speaking to the Fox & Friends crew this morning, Huckabee said he appreciated Texas Gov. Rick Perry‘s openness with his faith, but didn’t see it as a way of “other”-ing the Mormon candidates in the field, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman.

Rick Perry continues to poll well, and a CNN/ORC International Poll released ahead of tonight’s debate shows the Texas statesmen leading in both theoretical votes and general electability, earning the all important “nice guy” vote.

Mike Huckabee‘s weekly round at Fox & Friends this morning was far more somber than usual, as the topic of discussion naturally gravitated towards the September 11th attacks and the ceremony planned for tomorrow. Huckabee took offense at the secular nature of the ceremony, arguing that it was not “the politicians [who] were the heroes of 9/11,” but the clergy, and that anyone who would protest Muslim clerics at such a ceremony would be “inappropriate” and “ridiculous.”

With her speaking engagement this weekend Sarah Palin has once again managed to bring the 2012 presidential spotlight on herself without jumping into the race, though polls are now showing her chances are rather compromised. Even if she does not run or win, however, at least Mike Huckabee thinks there’s a significant place for her at the table. On Fox & Friends this morning, the 2008 GOP candidate argued that, given her poll numbers, it may be Palin’s fate to “season the food,” but not be the “main ingredient.”

Mike Huckabee may not be running for President this time around, but he was up bright and early in Iowa this morning for his appearance at the Ames Straw Poll today. Chatting with the cast of Fox & Friends, Huckabee weighed in on the other Republican event of the day: the RedState gather, where Texas Gov. Rick Perry is expected to announce his candidacy. “That’s a tactical mistake,” Huckabee argued, as Perry is now turning the entire state of Iowa against him.

Donald Trump wants to be clear: he is obviously “no fan” of President Obama, and “what’s happening in this country is terrible.” That said, he seems to hold the Credit Ratings companies in lower regard than the White House, particularly in light the recent credit downgrade made by the S&P. “These are arrogant guys,” Trump told the hosts of Fox and Friends, adding “they had no reason to do what they did.”

How’s this for thinking outside the box? Mike Huckabee visited the cast of Fox & Friends this morning to talk about the disastrous economic downturn the nation took yesterday as its credit rating sank, and had a suggestion or two for replacing one of those upon whose shoulders lay the most blame: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Paramount among those? Donald Trump, who he suggested should be given 90 days to turn the economy around.

Mike Huckabee made a midweek stop on the O’Reilly Factor tonight prompted by the controversy surrounding his new children’s education cartoons. One cartoon in particular that explains the events of September 11, 2001 has received significant criticism, both from those who believe the cartoons are biased in favor of the Bush administration and those that worry Huckabee is making money off the terror attacks. Today, Huckabee addressed the latter, saying criticizing him in such a way would be like condemning Michael Moore or Steven Spielberg for their work.

On his Fox News show last night, Mike Huckabee interviewed Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and defended her from all of the “nonsense” regarding her alleged intense migraine headaches. Before talk turned to the debt ceiling, Huckabee sarcastically called her migraines a “big story” and lambasted the media for wasting so much time on it, while saving his most fiery words for one ABC News self-proclaimed “investigator.”

President Barack Obama was not exactly a happy camper about his negotiations with the legislature collapsing entirely yesterday, with the clock ticking towards a national debt default. On this morning’s Fox & Friends, Mike Huckabee went as far as to call the President’s “visibly angry” demeanor not befitting a president, lamenting his “amateur hour” speech and comparing him to a “cowboy riding a stick horse in the Kentucky Derby.”

Mike Huckabee appeared with Lou Dobbs and expressed such frustration with President Obama that Dobbs appropriately wondered whether or not Huckabee was having second thoughts about deciding not to run for President? Although Huckabee threw cold water on the prospect of re-opening that door, he didn’t hesitate to take both Obama and Congress to task for saying one thing (that without a debt deal there will be catastrophic results) and yet acting completely different.

With the national debt taking up most of Congress’s summer efforts, Rep. Charlie Rangel made a special plea to his colleagues that, in voting on whether to raise the debt ceiling, they consider how Jesus would vote: “What would Jesus do this weekend?” On this morning’s Fox & Friends, former Arkansas governor (and pastor) Mike Huckabee did the research, and concluded that the first thing Jesus would do (and Rep. Rangel would not) is to pay his taxes.

It’s official: the anti-Republican presidential glitter protest has now become a national epidemic. After a speech during today’s Right Online conference in Minnesota, a lone protester approached the stage from which Rep. Michele Bachmann was descending and shouted “you can run, but you can’t hide!” at the Republican presidential candidate while tossing some sort of paper in her general direction. It was, to say the least, anticlimactic.

The baptism by glitter trend that began with a gay activist dumping shiny bits of paper onto Newt Gingrich was initially warmly received by almost everyone, partly due to the fact that it was perfectly timed into Newt Gingrich’s Week from Hell and also involved large amounts of glitter. By the time Code Pink hijacked the idea and went after Tim Pawlenty, however, the mood began to sour. And now Mike Huckabee is full-throatedly calling for the arrest of any and all glitterers.

The more things change with the current Republican presidential field, the more things stay the same. Following the lead of former Republican hopeful (current independent maybe-hopeful) Donald Trump, Fox News host Mike Huckabee, has once again raised speculation that he still has a few embers in his belly that push him to consider a presidential [...]

The past few months have been rough for prospective Republican presidential candidates, as the political media has chewed up and spit out the candidacies of pretenders like Donald Trump, wilting contenders like Mike Huckabee, and declared personality blips like Tim Pawlenty. Now, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is about to step into that meat-grinder, as his self-imposed deadline to declare his intentions expires today.

Making sense of the 2012 Republican contender field is anyone’s game at this point, though with the field slightly more narrowed down the questions shift from who is running or not to why. On today’s Fox News Watch, the panel grasped for adequate oratory to describe the bizarre experience of following this race, and came up with some of the weirdest back-to-back political turns of phrase in recent memory.

Ed Rollins is Mike Huckabee‘s 2008 national campaign chairman and was also supposedly in charge of setting up a potential 2012 run for the former Arkansas Governor, so one would think that he’d have known that Huckabee had decided not to throw his hat into the ring this year. Unfortunately for Rollins, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Rollins called in to Fox News Radio’s Kilmeade and Friends to share that he’s yet to receive a courtesy call from Huckabee regarding his decision not to run this year. Awkward!

With many potential Republican presidential candidates exiting the race and bailing on the fun, there is at least one Republican who seems to be revving up. Enter Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who called in on Fox News today and discussed with Martha MacCallum how she has raised a lot of money so far, and may be announcing whether she will run for President even sooner than when she previously promised.

Jon Stewart was eager to unload a series of porn-related jokes given the news that a stash of pornography was found inside Osama bin Laden’s compound. And he was able to pump one out, suggesting that with so much porn, “even before Navy seals shot out his eye, Osama bin Laden was probably going blind anyway.” Yet an avalanche of more current news dampened Stewart’s parade.