If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Mike Huckabee clearly holds Arianna Huffington in high esteem. 
 
 The former — and possibly future — presidential candidate will launch a website called the Huckabee Post, according to multiple reports. Mediaite found a Craigslist post listing openings for reporters at the new venture, touting it as "a new and exciting online news publication covering news on politics, U.S., international, media, sports and other general news." 
 
 Huckabee served as governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007 and briefly led the race for the Republican nomination during the 2008 presidential election before John McCain secured the nomination. His campaign featured one of the more tongue-in-cheek advertisements: an endorsement from Chuck Norris. Huckabee has also recently indicated that he is considering another run for the presidency in 2016. 
 
 Conservative personalities have found success leveraging their personal popularity into media brands, most notably with subscription service. Glenn Beck started TheBlaze in 2011 and Andrew Sullivan launched The Dish earlier this year. 
 
 Representatives for the Huckabee Post did not immediately respond to an email in response to its Craigslist ad. 
 
 Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. 
 
 Image: Getty/Brendan Smialowski ||||| Could Fox News be spawning another candidate for president? 
 
 Judging by the noises that Mike Huckabee is suddenly making, that’s a strong possibility. 
 
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 The host of a Saturday night show on FNC, Huckabee made a bid for the White House in 2008 and flirted with the idea in 2012. But nobody had been talking about him for 2016, and he has quite deliberately set out to change that with a string of interviews. 
 
 “I didn’t want any misinformation that I’ve told people I’m running—that’s not the case,” Huckabee told me yesterday. “I wanted to be honest and say, sure I’m looking at it.” 
 
 Once Huckabee started having meetings with potential donors and supporters, including some who haven’t backed him before, talking to the press was “just a matter of trying to shoot straight with people,” he says. 
 
 A major question for the former Arkansas governor is whether to give up his lucrative Fox perch—a decision that loomed large as he agonized about whether to jump into the last campaign—along with his radio commentaries. 
 
 Huckabee would have to leave the Fox payroll if he started taking serious steps toward the Republican primaries, such as forming an exploratory committee and raising money. That’s what happened with Fox contributors Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in the 2012 cycle. 
 
 He is very mindful of the prospect of having “zero income,” Huckabee told me, “unlike Senate candidates who continue to get a paycheck even if they’re not showing up for work. I emptied out the treasury when I ran in 2008 and cashed in everything I could cash in.” 
 
 The other overriding question hanging over a Huckabee candidacy is the same one he wrestled with last time: could he raise enough money to be competitive? Huckabee ran a shoestring campaign in ’08, when he was initially written off by the press until winning the Iowa caucus, and doesn’t want to be the poverty candidate again. 
 
 In a coordinated effort to raise his potential presidential profile, Huckabee granted three interviews at week’s end to show the media that he should be in the mix. 
 
 With Jonathan Martin in the New York Times: 
 
 “Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas has not been among the Republicans frequently named as a potential 2016 presidential candidate, but he would like that to change. ‘I’m keeping the door open,’ Mr. Huckabee said in an interview here Thursday night about the possibility of seeking his party’s nomination again.” 
 
 With Karen Tumulty in the Washington Post: 
 
 “Add another name to the list of potential GOP presidential contenders for 2016. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — the winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses, who took a pass on the 2012 presidential race — says he might be willing to give it another try. In an interview Thursday night, Huckabee said he is receiving encouragement to run ‘from places where I never got it before.’” 
 
 With CBN’s David Brody: 
 
 “In an exclusive backstage television interview with The Brody File, former governor Mike Huckabee says, ‘there’s a new openness now’ for a run at the presidency in 2016. Huckabee says he’s been encouraged to run by top evangelical and financial figures that did not back him in 2008.” 
 
 Huckabee’s social conservatism with a smile, his blue-collar appeal and his background as a minister—not to mention running a state for a decade—give him a singular appeal. Indeed, he is brandishing polling that shows him leading in Iowa and South Carolina. 
 
 But Huckabee noticed that all the chatter is about Chris Christie and Rand Paul and Jeb Bush and Scott Walker and others, and wants to keep his name in the mix to preserve his options. 
 
 Does his Fox platform help keep him in the public eye? Of course. The same was true of Gingrich and Santorum, and Sarah Palin when she pondered a run. 
 
 But if he can’t raise many millions of dollars, he will run out of gas after the early contests, as he did against John McCain. 
 
 Huckabee is a guy who doesn’t have to be president, and he was reluctant to give up his Fox salary as he weighed the race in 2011. 
 
 As he told me then, “I’m not a megalomaniac. I don’t think I’m the only person who can save America. I wouldn’t vote for someone who was that full of themselves. It’s a dangerous thing to have someone in a public office who believes he is not a public servant, he is the messiah.” 
 
 For now, Huckabee is candid in saying that yakking in front of a microphone is far easier than actually governing. And that viewers aren’t the same as voters. 
 
 “A lot of people like Jay Leno,” he says. “I don’t see a Leno-for-president campaign going on.” 
 
 An Iowa Poll Now? 
 
 An absurdly early Des Moines Register poll out yesterday backs up Huckabee’s point. 
 
 Paul Ryan (now under fire on the right for the bipartisan budget deal he brokered with Patty Murray) has a 73 percent approval rating among Iowa Republicans, the survey says. Huckabee in second with 66 percent. Chris Christie, less well matched to the state’s conservative GOP electorate, is at 51 percent. 
 
 Oh, and Hillary Clinton? She clocks in among Iowa Democrats at 89 percent. 
 
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 Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. ||||| New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are the first casualties of the winnowing GOP presidential debate field, as Fox Business Network announced Thursday night that they both officially missed the cut for next week’s contest. 
 
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 Christie and Huckabee are the only two candidates who had previously appeared on the main debate stage to get cut by the network, which set a threshold of 2.5 percent in four major polls for the top contest. They’ll instead participate in the undercard debate, a demotion that could serve as a major blow for their campaigns. 
 
 The writing was on the wall for Christie by Wednesday night, when he received 2 percent of the vote in Fox News’s latest poll. Poll watchers noted that Christie’s stagnant numbers in a handful of recent surveys, including the Fox one, made it increasingly unlikely that he’d be able to stay above that threshold. 
 
 Because Fox Business did not release which polls it would use in advance, Christie's fate remained in limbo until the network announced the lineup on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” 
 
 Most pundits had considered Huckabee, who received 4 percent support in the Fox News poll, in a safer spot. He is a former Fox News host who won the 2008 GOP Iowa caucuses and finished second behind Sen. John McCainJohn Sidney McCainThe Memo: GOP fears damage from Trump’s move on DACA Rescue efforts underway after F-16 crashes in Arizona McCain, Whitehouse urge SCOTUS to affirm Wisconsin gerrymandering decision MORE (R-Ariz.) for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. 
 
 Both Christie and Huckabee barely missed the mark, finishing with 2.25 percent in the four polls considered — those conducted by Fox News, NBC/Wall Street Journal, Quinnipiac University and Investor's Business Daily. If either candidate scored just 1 percentage point higher in any of those polls, they would have made it onto the debate stage. 
 
 Sen. Rand Paul Randal (Rand) Howard PaulPaul calls for bipartisan DACA solution This week: Harvey aid at top of long to-do list as Congress returns Trump, Congress face packed September agenda MORE (R-Ky.) just made it in with an average of exactly 2.5 percent. 
 
 Just an hour before Fox Business was scheduled to announce the lineup, Christie’s campaign announced that he would be on Fox News’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” presumably to push back against the fears that the debate snub would hurt his presidential bid. 
 
 Despite missing out on the main stage, Christie had received praise in recent weeks for his late-October debate performance as well as deeply personal remarks on drug addiction captured by The Huffington Post. 
 
 Christie tweeted just moments after the announcement with a reference to that Huffington Post video. 
 
 It doesn’t matter the stage, give me a podium and I’ll be there to talk about real issues like this: https://t.co/Fqu5Qi2piX #BringItOn — Chris Christie (@ChrisChristie) November 6, 2015 
 
 Huckabee was also defiant in the face of Fox’s decision. 
 
 “I’m happy to debate anyone, anywhere, anytime,” he said on Twitter. “We are months away from actual votes being cast and neither the pundits nor the press will decide this election, the people will.” 
 
 The main debate stage will include the eight remaining Republican candidates who participated in last month's CNBC debate: Real estate mogul Donald Trump Donald John TrumpSean Spicer to speak at gas industry conference Ex-World Bank president: Congress must crack down on Trump’s trade policies Hillary Clinton to sit down with CBS's Jane Pauley on Sunday MORE, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Sen. Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioRubio: Trump should 'clearly outline' what he wants on DACA Trump issues Florida emergency declaration ahead of Hurricane Irma East Coast watching for chance of Hurricane Irma MORE (Fla.) Sen. Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzNorth Korea fears demand attention despite domestic concerns Cruz: N. Korean test 'serious escalation' of its ability to commit mass murder Sunday shows preview: Trump faces aftermath of Harvey MORE (Texas), former CEO Carly Fiorina, former Gov. Jeb Bush (Fla.), Gov. John Kasich (Ohio) and Paul. 
 
 Huckabee and Christie will join Gov. Bobby Jindal (La.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) in the undercard debate. Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamWeek ahead: Congress returns to take up bipartisan health care effort DACA debate turns toward Congress as Trump readies decision Graham backs Trump ending DACA with 6-month delay MORE (S.C.) and former New York Gov. George Pataki missed qualifying for the undercard because they failed to poll at one percent in any of those four polls. 
 
 Neither Graham nor Pataki received any support in three of the polls. The fourth poll, NBC/WSJ, did not initially include the names of any of the candidates who had previously appeared in the undercard. Their names were only included if a respondent declined to support any of the top-tier candidates.
– Read it into what you will, 2016 prognosticators: Mike Huckabee appears to be launching a news website called the "Huckabee Post," reports Mashable. The development actually surfaced a few days ago when Mediaite spotted this Craigslist ad seeking reporters for “a new and exciting online news publication covering news on politics, US, international, media, sports and other general news.” What's more, Huckabee has given a slew of interviews to big-name media outlets of late to say he's at least considering a run. “I didn’t want any misinformation that I’ve told people I’m running—that’s not the case,” Huckabee tells Howard Kurtz at Fox News. “I wanted to be honest and say, sure I’m looking at it.” Besides, it may be December 2013, but that hasn't stopped the Des Moines Register from publishing a poll of Iowa voters this week, and Huckabee finished second (66%) in favorability ratings to Paul Ryan (73%). For the record, Hillary Clinton trumped them both with her 89% rating among state Democrats. Joe Biden trailed her at 71%.