“Romney is still weak among evangelicals and the faith-based community, and there’s probably no one else in the country who could better take that off the table than Huckabee,” said Mike Campbell, who helmed Huckabee’s 2008 campaign in South Carolina. “When you go beyond that, he’s extremely popular with the Tea Party and with the fair-tax community. These are people that Romney is going to desperately have to have that level of comfort with, and I just don’t think there’s anyone else out there who can balance off the ticket as well as [Huckabee] does.”…

“The way the news cycle is now, the vice presidency is more high-profile than it used to be, and you need to have someone who’s vetted and doesn’t have any major surprises,” Gidley said. “I think one of the reasons to pick Mike Huckabee is that he’s done it before. He’s been vetted, he’s good on the stump, he’s great on a debate stage, he’s inspiring, he was a governor, he energizes the base.”