Mike Huckabee, candidate for the GOP nomination and former Arkansas governor, speaks at yesterday’s closing of Shape Up RI at Rhode Island College. He has lost more than 100 pounds.

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / John Freidah John Freidah

PROVIDENCE — Anything passed to you through a car window probably isn’t real food, says former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a spokesman for wellness who lost more than 100 pounds and took up marathon running.

He’s running a much more difficult race now, as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

At Rhode Island College yesterday, Huckabee addressed the closing ceremonies of Shape Up RI, the wellness competition started by Brown University medical student Rajiv Kumar.

Huckabee spoke about Southern fried food and the lifestyle change he underwent to lose weight and become an athlete.

In a private 10-minute interview before the event, Huckabee discussed politics, war and his prospects for the White House.

Q: Actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson has received a lot of attention as a possible Republican presidential candidate. Is that because there is dissatisfaction with the frontrunners on the Republican side — Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney?

MH: “It’s evidence there’s no one who has captured the market. One of the reasons guys like me are in the race is that we represent — or I represent, I believe — the rank-and-file heart of the party. And I think there is still an opening for someone, and I hope it’s me.”

Q: The number of people who identify themselves as Republicans is falling, according to national surveys. Why is that?

MH: “I think it’s a combination of the [Iraq] war, disgust with corruption, a lack of commitment to the Republican principles that caused people to identify with the Republicans — like controlling spending and responsible government. And I think there is lingering angst over the way [Hurricane] Katrina was handled. There is wholesale embarrassment in the way that was bungled.

Q: Has President Bush damaged the Republican brand?

MH: “I think it’s a little unfair to blame the president solely. I think Congress has to share some of the burden for ignoring a lot of the problems people sent them there to work on, whether it was immigration, or the war, or tax problems, health care or education. They frankly accomplished very little and spent an enormous amount of money doing it. You can’t spend a whole lot more money, get less done and expect people to give you a standing ovation. You’re going to get Bronx cheers instead, and that’s what they got.”

Q: Should the war in Iraq continue?

MH: “It has to continue until we have brought some level of stability. If we were to prematurely leave and have a political and economic vacuum that we helped cause, the result would be devastating. It would bring total chaos in the nation of Iraq; the genocide that would unquestionably result would cause massive refugee exodus into the neighboring countries, further destabilizing them, creating tensions. Then you don’t just have an explosive situation in Iraq, you have one in the entire region that burns out of control. If it were just Iraq and we could walk away and say, ‘They got their problems and by gosh, it’s theirs,’ that’s one thing. But that’s not what we’re facing.”

Q: The cost is high: 127 American soldiers killed there in May, the third deadliest month in the war. At what point does America say it’s not worth the lives and the money?

MH: “It’s never acceptable to lose an American life. Sometimes we have to ask how many American lives would we be losing on our own shores if this whole world goes up in an even more intense zone of terror, which at least has been confined to that region. I do think that people underestimate that the reason violence has intensified in Iraq is that al-Qaida understands that they’ve got a real opportunity. They’re putting a lot of focus and effort there to help create increased insurgency and the results aren’t positive, but it’s still a better situation than us mopping up after another 9/11 on our own grounds.”

Q: You are a Baptist minister. The Bible says, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” [Matthew 5:9] Who are the peacemakers today?

MH: “Peacemakers are anyone who tries to bring peace to what is really a world of conflict. But there is a difference between a peacemaker and a peace lover. The Scripture doesn’t say ‘blessed are the peace lovers.’ We’re all peace lovers. Peacemakers are those who actually engage in those actions which result in the ultimate sense of peace. And sometimes peacemakers have to take on unpleasant tasks. Peacemaking in World War II, for example, had to be [by] military action. … Did they do it by chanting and throwing flowers? No, they did it by staging the largest military efforts the world has ever seen. It was not necessarily pretty or fun, and I pray to God we never have to do it again, but I would think it would be hard to argue that those were not peacemakers.”

Q: What’s the scenario under which you win the Republican nomination?

MH: “The Iowa straw poll, Aug. 11, is a very important milestone. We have to demonstrate the capacity to organize and get people to rally behind me. So we’re going to put a lot of effort this summer into doing well in the Iowa straw poll.”

marsenau@projo.com