Mike Huckabee is eating a cheeseburger and fries on the Lido Deck of the Sapphire Princess, a luxury cruise ship bound from Seattle to Alaska across the rough waters of the Queen Charlotte Sound. A 40-knot wind blasting down from the north is causing this floating resort to roll to and fro, sending pallid-faced passengers back to their state rooms and depressing the sales of booze, on which the profits of the Princess rest. The ship is massive: one third the weight of the Empire State Building and as long as the Eiffel Tower is high. Of its 2,600 passengers, 250 have signed up for the Freedom Cruise, a Christian gospel music extravaganza of which Huckabee, the Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas, is the star guest and attraction.

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