Today, we’re going to talk about “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy,” Mike Huckabee’s entry into the presidential book-writing sweepstakes. These tomes are going to be piling up soon, and remember: We read them so you don’t have to.

Huckabee is an excellent place to start since his book points to one of the terrible truths of presidential politics: It changes everybody who gets into it, generally for the worse, frequently for the awful.

Some presidential hopefuls just stick their toes into the water and, instantly, they’re gorgon versions of themselves. Look at what’s happened to Chris Christie and Rand Paul. Five minutes ago, a lot of people thought they were a little weird but kind of cool. Now things are trending toward really weird and kind of mean. Remember what happened to John McCain. Remember John Edwards? Maybe the secret strength of Hillary Clinton’s campaign is that since she’s been through this so many times, we can relax and assume she’s already been turned into whatever she’s going to turn into.

While Mike Huckabee is almost certainly not going to be the Republican presidential nominee, he is a real candidate. Won the Iowa caucuses in 2008. And he just quit his cushy job interviewing people on Fox to get back into the game. So, give the man some cred.