Hold on to your hats, folks! Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has entered the presidential race, setting up a fight to the finish with tea party favorite Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for the GOP's most hallowed being: the evangelical voter.

Cruz may have announced his candidacy at Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, but it was Huckabee who delivered some ministerial guidance from a lectern in Hope, Arkansas.



"As Americans, we ought to get onto our knees every night and thank God we still live in a country that people are trying to break into rather than one they're trying to break out of," he said to cheers.

Sorry—if you're not a believer, you don't count to Huckabee. In fact, it's questionable whether he even thinks non-Christians are Americans at all. Perhaps that's because his candidacy might actually succeed if the only people allowed to vote were evangelical Christians.

On that point, Huckabee is in perfect synch with Ted Cruz, who dared to dream a version of that scenario during his Lynchburg, Virginia, announcement in March.



“Roughly half of born-again Christians aren’t voting. They’re staying home. Imagine, instead, millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values.”

Whoa, hold on, Ted. Before you lose yourself in that general-election fantasy, don't forget about the primary, where you and Huckabee will first have to duke it out for the affections of true believers.

Head below the fold for more on this story.