Former Gov. Mike Huckabee came back to Arkansas last week to make a few headlines over same-sex marriage.
He said county clerks here could rightfully refuse to license gay couples to marry.
The former governor contends same-sex marriage hasn't been codified into Arkansas or in federal law yet and that clerks should "follow the only law they have in front of them."
Mind you, Huckabee is not a lawyer and not now governor, so he's speaking mostly these days as a presidential candidate.
Gay marriage is his issue lately, albeit a poor one; and his remarks had the potential to do a little rabble-rousing here as the issue has in Kentucky.
You'll remember Huckabee swept into that state to defend a county clerk who was jailed when she wouldn't issue marriage licenses to gay couples and indeed stopped issuing any licenses so as not to go against her religious beliefs.
She ended up in jail for contempt of court and Huckabee rode into town to offer to take her place behind bars.
The judge who had jailed her released her, however; and instead we saw those scenes of Republican Huckabee hoisting the hand of Kim Davis, the Democratic county clerk in Rowan County, Ky., when she triumphantly left the jailhouse.
Again, she was out not because she had done anything to earn her freedom but because her deputies did the job Davis wouldn't do and issued the marriage licenses as required by a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding gay marriage.
She's back at work drawing her public paycheck for not doing her sworn duty and, in some minds, creating some question as to the validity of the licenses on which she refuses to put her name or her office.
A circus of sorts has popped up around that Kentucky county courthouse and Huckabee gets some of the credit (or blame) for making it happen.
Not only has the incident attracted a media throng, it has also drawn Christian activists from around the nation, including protestors and hecklers who belittle a deputy who has saved his boss's bacon by issuing marriage licenses she won't.
While Huckabee clearly disagrees with the Supreme Court decision, as he's entitled to do, what he did in Kentucky and again in Arkansas mostly serves his political purpose, not any greater good.
He's way down in the polls among that too-large field of Republican candidates for president and has been trying to cement his following among religious conservatives.
That's the core of Huckabee's support and he's trying to build on it to the exclusion of other candidates who might also appeal to those voters. Remember, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also showed up in Kentucky to support Davis, but was kept off the stage with her and Huckabee.
These are the people Huckabee must hang onto as he waits for the Republican field to winnow.
That assumes he can hang on long enough. Huckabee's poll numbers at the front of the week weren't much over 4 percent in a race dominated by Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson, the odd couple of outsiders who lay claim to support from almost 50 percent of those polled.
Expect Huckabee to play to that crowd again tonight as the Republican candidates meet in the second televised debate, this one on CNN at 8 p.m.
Like the others who trail Trump and Carson, Huckabee will be trying to get noticed any way he can.
Something worth noting is that when Huckabee came back here and suggested Arkansas county clerks could defy the federal courts, the former governor was going against what sitting Gov. Asa Hutchinson had advised Arkansas clerks to do.
That's Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor who so glowingly introduced Huckabee when he announced this bid for the presidency.
Both Hutchinson and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, another Republican, have told the Arkansas clerks to comply with the Supreme Court's decision.
They did so promptly after the June decision was issued and both of their offices reaffirmed their positions after Huckabee's remarks last week.
Importantly, while there have been a few Arkansas clerks who said the ruling goes against their religion, none have defied the order.
Gov. Hutchinson had said they should "follow their own conscience" but he reminded them their jobs required them to issue same-sex marriage licenses and that it was not discretionary after the Supreme Court ruling.
The Cleburne County clerk resigned, saying she could not issue same-sex licenses because of her faith.
That's the model Kim Davis ought to follow in Kentucky, although she's shown no inclination to resign.
And Huckabee should leave the governing in Arkansas to the people in office now.
Commentary on 09/16/2015