state of arkansas but tonight i love iowa a whole lot. welcome back to hardball. that was former arkansas governor mike huckabee winning iowa caucuses back in 2008. huckabee lost the gop nomination that year to john mccain but now it looks like he wants another crack at it. late today huckabee told reporters he s formed a presidential exploratory committee and moments ago he said this about his 2016 campaign plans. may 5th is the day i ll make an announcement and i hope people will come to hope arkansas, and not just to tour the bill clinton birthplace. huckabee has a history of colorful talk. here he is on gaze women and his favorite punching bag, president obama. do you believe you re born gay or you choose to be gay? i don t know whether people are born that way. people who are gay say that they are born that way, but one thing i know that the behavior one practices is a choice.
in 2008. yeah. how do you paint the picture of your path to the nomination? well we know that iowa is going to be an important part of that path. there s going to be an expectation that i will do well there. i don t know nor would i declare i ve got to win iowa or i can t go forward. i think that would be absurd because i don t think it s all based on one state. but clearly coming out of iowa with momentum is important. we need to do well in south carolina. we need to show that we at least are competing in new hampshire. it s a tougher state because it tends to be maybe a little more to the center and left and i m a little more to the right. may 5th is the day that i ll make an announcement and i hope that people will come to hope arkansas, and not just to tour the bill clinton birthplace but there s going to be an announcement that day and everybody will know for sure whether mike huckabee is in the race or not. kind of ironic that it s in