WASHINGTON, DC (N3) - The Pew Research Center released a survey of the American presidential election with a startling conclusion -- that Mike Huckabee will take the lead not because of his political views, but because Americans can identify with his struggle for weight loss.

"During the 1990s," the report concludes, "Huckabee underwent a ritual that is familiar to most Americans. He had to admit he had a problem, change his lifestyle, and find some way to cram exercise into his busy schedule of kleptocracy, greed, insincerity, graft and ineffectual token gestures thrust at unchanging, deep-rooted, socially unapproachable problems. Huckabee took on this challenge and won, and 78.6% of Americans can identify with that, while only 12.1% are familiar with leadership, success, integrity or problem solving that requires more than two steps, one of which includes a credit card."

Stumping today in Mill Dump, NY, Huckabee commented that this is only one of his many appealing traits. "Americans know me because I'm an American," he said. "Because I'm an American, I struggle with weight loss, religion, immigration, drug use, incest and stupidity, and although I never solve these problems, I keep on fighting, because this is the show y'all came to see and nevermind what happens behind the curtain."