Rocking ’Til the Cows Come Home

Mike Huckabee is having a rock-star moment. It's 5 p.m. on a recent Friday when the former Arkansas governor, onstage at the near-empty Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, unclips his BlackBerry from his belt and places it atop his amp. Three photographers crouch and click. In a few hours, Huckabee's classic-rock cover band, Capitol Offense—a group of middle-aged folks who mostly worked under Huckabee in Little Rock—will fill the Surf, where Buddy Holly played his final show, with 650 fans. But for now, Huckabee has to tune his bass guitar. He cracks open his case. A cameraman from KETV in Omaha, Neb., inches closer; a boom mike hovers near Huckabee's head. Unfazed, he hoists a stars-and-stripes strap over his shoulder and swivels toward his gear. But before he can make any tweaks, NBC News interrupts: "So, Governor Huckabee, any favorite songs on the set list?" As he turns to answer—"Well, there's 'Free Bird,' great Southern rock tune …"—his band, arriving late from Arkansas, straggles into the Surf. It takes Huckabee a moment to notice. "What, no hello?" he shouts. Singer Steve Pyle surveys the swarm of reporters. "Nah," he says, smiling. "You're too important now for me to talk to."

Surging in the Hawkeye State, Huckabee suddenly seems poised to affect the caucuses—and that, not the music, is why the media came to Clear Lake. When Capitol Offense last played Iowa, on Aug. 11, Huckabee polled at 3 percent statewide; now he's in second with 15. But I made the trip for a different reason: to strap on a Stratocaster and jam with the governor. Huckabee's music, it seemed to me, is more than a novelty; it's part of why he's popular. He's not the first presidential candidate to play an instrument. But as a Baptist minister, he may be the first whose message—I'm a new kind of Christian conservative who's not at war with mainstream America—is most convincing when he's rocking out. "People substitute politics for their lives," he says. "That's a terrible thing. Politics is not a life. I'm a real person. I'm a musician. And I refuse to become subhuman to run for office."

Backstage before the show—we're in Huckabee's DRESSING ROOM/OFFICE/CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS, according to a door sign—the candidate takes off one crisp, blue-striped shirt and puts on another. I ask about his first guitar. "The Beatles came out, like, early '64, and from that time on I wanted one really badly," he says. "But my parents couldn't afford it. I'd kind of given up. Then, Christmas morning, 1966, I open my present—and there it was! An electric from the JCPenney catalog. Included an amp, a strap, everything. It was $99 for the whole thing. Took them a year to pay off. I played 'til my fingers bled." Huckabee soon switched to bass—bands always needed bassists—and performed at local sock hops with a series of teen combos. But college was too busy; his basses sat in the closet. Finally, after Huckabee's first son was born in 1976, he sold them to buy a washer and dryer. "That was painful," says his wife, Janet. Huckabee didn't play in public again until 1996, when he cooked up Capitol Offense in the basement of the governor's mansion—and went on to open for Willie Nelson, among others. He laughs. "If you're the only sitting governor in America with a rock-and-roll band," he says, "you get invited to some things."

A few minutes later, I follow Capitol Offense onstage for sound check. Huckabee taps the toe of his ostrich-skin cowboy boot in time. "It's the real deal here," he says. "This floor, these booths, those murals." Even though he's applying to be leader of the free world, Huckabee is happy to let his bandmates run the rehearsal, and guitarist Rick Calhoun calls out the number: "Johnny B. Goode," the key of A. "You ready?" asks Huckabee—and we're off. I stick to the chords (and even miss a few). But Huckabee performs. He improvises riffs. He cocks his arm upward, grinning. And when he flubs a note, he covers like a pro. "Clinton was a pretty good sax player," music teacher Mark Cripps told me earlier that day, after Huckabee played two (unrehearsed) songs with the Moville, Iowa, high-school jazz band. "But Clinton would never come in cold like that. This guy's good on his feet." When the song ends, Huckabee high-fives me. "Awesome job!" he says. "If that thing at NEWSWEEK doesn't work out, you should join up with us." Too kind, Governor, but thanks. If that rock-star thing doesn't work out, you should consider a career in politics.

© 2007