ArkansasPerspective: Huckabee risks overexposure before 2012

LITTLE ROCK Will Huckabee fatigue set in?

Mike Huckabee is no longer a candidate for president or a governor, but it's pretty hard to escape him these days.

If he's not hosting his weekly talk show on Fox News, maybe he's chatting with the ladies on ABC's "The View." If you miss him being interviewed on talk radio, no worries. You will be able to catch him each weekday on his own Paul Harvey-esque radio program starting in January.

Did the former Republican presidential hopeful reach a media saturation point last week, when he released a book on his failed White House bid and launched an 18-state tour to tout it? With stops in Iowa, Georgia and West Virginia, he's revisiting states that offered him victories during his cash-strapped campaign.

Huckabee says he's not making any plans, but his media appearances leave the impression that he's laying the groundwork for another shot at the White House.

"I'm not ruling anything out for the future, but I'm not making any specific plans," Huckabee told reporters last week. "It's not something I'm sitting around thinking about."

But his omnipresence leaves one big question: Will voters miss him if he won't go away?

Political experts say Huckabee is walking a fine line between relishing the spotlight and hogging it.

"It's a tricky tightrope act for any politician in his position to perform," said Mark Rozell, professor of public policy at George Mason University in suburban Washington. "He doesn't want people to forget about him and his surprisingly good showing in some of the primaries and caucuses. On the other hand, there is a saturation point where people think a politician is pushing himself a bit too hard."

The other problem that Huckabee faces is the perception that he's not just pushing himself. He's shoving others out of the way.

In his new book, Huckabee touts something he calls "vertical politics," the idea of focusing more on solutions than partisanship.

"Few citizens care if the potholes and bad roads are repaired by a Democrat or a Republican, but they do care that they're repaired," Huckabee writes.

In the book, Huckabee's concepts and his continued push for a national sales tax are drowned by his criticism of former Republican rival Mitt Romney. Portraying the former Massachusetts governor as a flip-flopper who was disrespectful toward him in the campaign, Huckabee revives his primary campaign feud and also offers a potential preview of a 2012 matchup.

Huckabee says he hopes to keep pushing his message through his media appearances and by trying to help like-minded Republicans get elected. His political action committee and a "Vertical Politics Institute" he recently launched are also sure to keep him in the limelight.

There may be little danger that Huckabee's newfound celebrity status will wear thing among voters. That's probably because few voters are watching closely enough to get tired of the Arkansas governor.

"The people who pay attention to these types of things are people who aren't capable of being oversaturated by politics," said Dan Schnur, who was communications director for John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. "He is keeping himself in front of that first concentric circle of activists and decision makers."

Schnur, now the director of the University of Southern California's Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics, said Huckabee isn't overexposing himself to voters. Instead, he's keeping himself prominently in the minds of party activists and leaders who are already weighing the 2012 field.

"When the other party holds the White House, there's no one logical spokesman for the opposition," Schnur said. "There are Republican congressional leaders and Republican governors who will all fill that role to some degree. ... (Huckabee) becomes a significant part of that conversation."

DeMillo covers Arkansas government and politics for The Associated Press.