Jim Heath:  Governor, you're in Ohio.  Republicans typically nominate the guy who's run before, which leaves you and Governor Romney in 2012.  Is this the beginning of many trips to Ohio you'll make between now and 2012?

Mike Huckabee:  No, I know people will try to read into something about the visit here.  But really it's about, primarily coming here for this event on diabetes and diabetes education.  Talking about health, not health care, but health because that's what we really need to be focused on.  Later in the day I'll be doing some things for John Kasich who's a dear friend of mine.  It's a delight to see someone I have great confidence in, and someone I think would make a great governor and campaign for him.  I'm not here for me.  And I know people will say there's an ulterior motive, but I'm really not thinking about the next presidential race.  I have a wonderful gig going on right now with FOX News and daily radio commentaries that are on 500 stations.  I'm loving it.  Not ruling things out for the future but right now my future is trying to be the best I can at what I'm doing and getting a message out on radio, television and printed word.

Heath:  Republicans today are accused of being the Party of 'no.'  Is there a risk in that?  In today's Columbus Dispatch there's a headline that the recovery is happening.  Do Republicans run the risk in the off year election of being on the wrong side of an economic recovery?  Will there be enough of a message to make significant gains?

Huckabee:  Well, I think it's unfair when people say Republicans are the Party of no.  The Republicans have proposed some serious measures, let's say in health care reform.  For example, if you don't fully address the issue of medical malpractice, the fact that a lot of tests are done not because the doctors needs them or the patient needs them but because they need them in the court room in case they get sued.  If you're not serious about addressing that stuff, then you can't be honest and look someone in the eye and tell them we're trying to fix health care.  Republicans have talked about that.  They've talked about bringing portability and personalization to a health care policy.  Creating the capacity to buy policies across state lines so that it goes with you.  Tax credits so that when people do get insured, rather than being taxed for it like the Baucus plan which is a penalty of having insurance, people should be rewarded for getting insurance and paying for it.  That should be an encouragement not a discouragement.  Those aren't points of no.  Those are points of go.  But the Republicans don't get to control the message machine of some of the mainstream press that will say they're the Party of no.  When they put forth ideas, a lot of times those ideas are not even being acknowledged.  So they're going to have a take a more active role in getting their message out and having a message to begin with.

Heath:  Does that message start in Ohio?  This is a state that went for Barack Obama last year. 

Huckabee:  Well, I don't live here full time and I'm simply sort of parachuting in, but I think what I'm hearing all over the country, and I'm traveling all the time, is that people voted for hope and not getting it.  They voted for change but they're getting a different type of change than they thought.  What they did not expect was that government would become more encroaching into their lives and take more of their everyday decisions.  That's not what they voted for.  They didn't vote for higher costs, they didn't vote for more government control, they didn't vote for the president to picking the CEO's of car companies, insurance companies, limiting salaries, and actually running individual corporations and picking banks to win and banks to fail, and paying AIG executives to go out on nice retreats in the desert enjoying massages at government expense.  They didn't vote for the kind of thing.  What has to happen is that Republicans have to start acting like real Republicans.  The reason Republicans got defeated in 2006 and 2008 is because people couldn't tell the difference between them and the Democrats.  In fact, the Democrats weren't spending any more.  What has to happen is Republicans who get elected have to show that they actually believe in something and mean it when they get there.  You can't have phony Republicans, people that don't have any convictions and, these guys who say they're conservatives but they went out and supported a TARP bill last year?  There isn't anything conservative about that.  There were a lot of Republicans who were wringing their hands saying 'oh, TARP, it's terrible but we've got to do it.'  No you don't.  You don't ever have to do something that's stupid.  And that was stupid.

Heath:  Are you prepared in 2010 to step up and lead the Republican Party?  A lot of people are looking around asking is it Sarah Palin?  Is it Mike Huckabee?  Is it Mitt Romney?  Who leads the Republican Party nationally?

Huckabee:  You know who I think ought to be leading the Republican Party?  The people at the local and precinct level.  We tend to look at these guys upstream...

Heath:  But don't they need somebody above to get the team on message?

Huckabee:  That will happen naturally.  I think what needs to lead the Republican Party is more it's principals than its politicians.  We need to decide what we believe as a Party.  What principals, what ideals do we hold for and articulate those and the personalities will take care of themselves.  The problem the Party has had is not a shortage of personalities it's a lack of articulated principals that are clear, concise that people can relate to.

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