Mike Huckabee won the Republican caucus in Iowa last night with the backing of many evangelical Christians (entrance polls found that more than 8 in 10 of his supporters identified themselves as such).
In academe, the former governor of Arkansas also has picked up support from leaders of some of the country’s most conservative Christian universities.
For instance, Jerry Falwell Jr., who recently took over his late father’s job as chancellor of Liberty University, said in November that Mr. Huckabee is his choice for president.
And Michael P. Farris, chancellor of Patrick Henry College, a college in Virginia known for its strict biblical views and teachings, contributed $2,300 to Mr. Huckabee’s campaign.
Among the former governor’s other big donors from academe are the presidents of several Arkansas institutions, including Ouachita Technical College, the University of Central Arkansas, and Southern Arkansas University.
Lu Hardin, the president of Central Arkansas, directed the Arkansas Department of Higher Education under Mr. Huckabee from 1997 to 2002. He gave $2,300.
“Mike Huckabee was an excellent higher-education governor,” Mr. Hardin said in an interview.
Mr. Hardin, who was a Democrat when Mr. Huckabee asked him to join his administration, said the former governor pushed for budget increases to higher education when appropriations for colleges were relatively flat in many states.
He particularly praised Mr. Huckabee for pressing policies that helped to keep more of Arkansas’s top students in the state for college.
The governor successfully advocated allowing students to use state merit scholarships to attend private colleges in the state and not just public ones, as the law had previously provided.
The change made a difference, according to Mr. Hardin, who said that 88 percent of Arkansas high-school students who scored at least 32 on the ACT remained in the state for college by the time Mr. Huckabee left office, in early 2007. That was up from 38 percent in the 1997-98 academic year, Mr. Hardin said.
On other fronts, Mr. Huckabee’s record as governor has generated controversy during the campaign. He favored making some illegal immigrants eligible for state scholarships, putting him at odds with some of his Republican counterparts and with many conservative voters.
