With the momentum of his Iowa upset now petering out, Mike Huckabee needs to put up big numbers in Saturday's contest in South Carolina. Which is probably why he's suddenly shifting his position on an issue affecting a staple crop in South Carolina: tobacco.

A bit of a show-off when it comes to being a health nut, the Huckster has till now been an advocate for no-smoking laws, having enacted one as governor of Arkansas and having committed last year to signing a federal smoking ban in public places should he become president. At a forum hosted by Lance Armstrong, Huckabee pledged he "certainly would" sign such a law and added his view that "there should be no smoking in any indoor area where people have to work."

But now that his campaign is banking hard on a South Carolina spark—and is fighting off a bid by Fred Thompson to siphon away Southern voters—Huck is taking his antitobacco position in the opposite direction. According to a statement provided Tuesday night to The Hill, Huckabee is citing the lack of support for a federal smoking ban as his reason for abandoning it. "Since such sentiment for federal legislation doesn't exist at this time, and since he has said that the responsibility for regulating smoking initially lies with the states, the governor believes that this issue is best addressed at the local and state levels." Leave it to Huck to beguile us from our judgments with another folksy one-liner!