Gregory Smith / AP Photo
Can Mike Huckabee ever play the leading man? Even though a Gallup poll recently showed Huckabee as the Republican of choice to run for the 2012 ticket, the former governor of Arkansas isn't sure a presidential nomination is in the cards for him. Huckabee is crisscrossing the U.S. on tour for his new book, A Simple Christmas, but predicts that the fanfare surrounding Sarah Palin's memoir will obscure his own publicity, even though the Gallup survey showed that 71 percent of Republicans would favor his bid. Scars from his second-place finish in the 2008 primaries also haven’t completely healed. Huckabee is “keenly aware of his own strengths as he is of possible weaknesses.” And the other factor? “Not many of us can forgo an income for a couple of years.”