Top 10 Republicans of the Decade | No. 10: Mike Huckabee

As the first decade of the 2000s comes to a close, GOPToast offers its list of the top 10 Republicans of the decade. This is not a "best of" list; it's a list of the Republicans whose actions most altered their party's course over the past ten years. They may be famous, they may be infamous, they may fall somewhere in between. Here they are, the top 10 Republicans of the decade.

MIKE HUCKABEE

While Mike Huckabee spent more than half the decade as the governor of Arkansas, it's Huckabee's role in the 2008 presidential election that lands him on this list. As we said in the introduction to this series, some Republicans made this list since they are famous while others would make the list because they are infamous. Huckabee falls in the latter category.

The past decade saw three presidential elections, giving Republicans numerous chances to add their names to the history books. Americans saw a Republican primary season in 2008 between two big names: John McCain and Mitt Romney. It was quite apparent that when the dust settled, one of those two men would face a Democratic opponent for the White House in November 2008. Huckabee had other ideas though. Refusing to exit the race despite his near zero chance of actually winning the nomination, Huckabee continuously siphoned conservative support away from Romney.

If Huckabee were removed from the 2008 primary equation, would Romney have been able to win the nomination? Would Romney have been able to defeat Barack Obama in November? While we'll never have answers to these questions, we do know that Huckabee played a role in charting the course that led to Obama becoming America's 44th president.