That said, money doesn't always buy political success and quick answers. Mr. Huckabee finished second in a recent South Carolina presidential straw poll, and he's credited for delivering the most memorable line of last month's Republican presidential debate in California, when he said "[w]e've had a Congress that's spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop," referring to the former North Carolina Democratic senator pulling $800 out of his presidential campaign account to pay for a pair of haircuts.

Like Bill Clinton before him, the 51-year-old Mr. Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist church pastor, was born in Hope, Ark.

Fitting salute

There's nobody better than the spirit of Robert E. Lee to recall the life of Vicki Kaye Heilig, a former historian-general and District of Columbia division president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), who died last month after a battle with cancer.

"The speaker is a historian/actor/orator named Dick Crozier ... who frequently re-enacts Robert E. Lee," Virginia UDC member Martha M. Boltz explains of an Arlington National Cemetery ceremony to be held for Miss Heilig at 3 p.m. Sunday at Jackson Circle.

"We'll have ... Tuscarora brass, pipers, the whole shebang, ending with the cannon salute. Only difference is that they were told they couldn't have cookies and lemonade as has been done for so many years, apparently some rule we never knew of. ... Black powder is OK, but cookies are not. Go figure." Miss Heilig, who held a master's degree from the College of William & Mary and worked as a programmer at IBM until her retirement in 1997, is credited in her obituary for being the "driving force on the Confederate Memorial Committee," who later led the group's annual ceremony at the memorial located at Arlington National Cemetery. She also led annual ceremonies in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall commemorating Lee's birthday.