If you haven't seen it already, here's the first television spot for Mike Huckabee that will begin airing today in Iowa with a limited ($60,000) ad buy:

Huckabee and his new ad were on Fox News Sunday yesterday, where he also took a swipe at Fred Thompson by rejecting the notion of states' rights for abortion, arguing that such an approach constituted "the logic of the Civil War:"

"If morality is the point here, and if it's right or wrong, not just a political question, then you can't have 50 different versions of what's right and what's wrong."

"For those of us for whom this is a moral question, you can't simply have 50 different versions of what's right."

Here's more on Huckabee's FNS turn from the NY Times' Caucus Blog.

Over at Salon, Amanda Griscom Little has an interview with Huckabee on environmental issues that contains the following exchange:

You often invoke your faith when talking about environmental stewardship. How are these two issues connected for you?

This world doesn't belong to me. I'm a guest here. I don't have a right to abuse it, any more than I have a right to abuse someone else's property if they were to let me stay in their apartment for a weekend. It's a sin against future generations for me to act as if there are no future generations that should enjoy the world as I do.

I love the outdoors. We have a beautiful, magnificent world: rivers and streams and mountains. I find myself overwhelmed when I look at it. I want my great-great-great-grandchildren to one day go out and smell the same fresh air, fish in wonderful streams, and be able to see the same mountains I see. I sure don't want them to have it in worse shape and wonder why I didn't do a better job of handing it down to them.

Do you believe that human beings are the primary drivers of climate change?

The honest answer is I don't know. And for me, that's not the issue. Instead of being wrapped into this political discussion of "Is there global warming, and who caused it?" what we need to be saying is, "Look, let's agree that we all have responsibility to present a better planet to the next generation." Whether or not you want to believe that it's caused by driving to work, let's agree that we need to take better care of the planet. Being a conservationist is the proper way to live, whether there is human-based global warming or not.

Elsewhere, PoliFact checks in on Huckabee's claim that "As governor of Arkansas, I cut taxes and fees almost 100 times, saving the taxpayers almost $380-million. I left a surplus of nearly $850-million." The verdict: glossy but true.

Lastly, National Review sticks the shiv in Huckabee with this editorial calling his domestic policy ideas "half-baked:"

Unfortunately, what Huckabee offers by way of solutions is a mixture of populism and big-government liberalism; the common theme of his policies is that they are half-baked.

NR's editors go on to berate Huckabee's support of the Fair Tax, which they call a "pipe dream," before concluding:

Several of the Republican presidential candidates share Huckabee's views on abortion and same-sex marriage. On domestic-policy issues, however, he stands alone. Thankfully.