Mike Huckabee won a reputation on the 2008 presidential trail as one of the most humorous, engaging speakers in the field.

His folksy presence and conservative voice won him a Fox television show after he lost the GOP nomination to Sen. John McCain. The roots of the former Arkansas governor's empathetic style were on display yesterday as Mr. Huckabee preached to an overflowing congregation at Christ Church at Grove Farm in Ohio Township.

Mr. Huckabee led off with a few jokes drawn from the campaign trail but mostly hewed to his other role as a Baptist minister as he discussed the New Testament parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The latter profession, he noted, was no more popular in the time of the Gospels than now. During more than five hours at the North Hills church complex, Mr. Huckabee also played the bass guitar and signed copies of his new book, "A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories that Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit."

Several of the churchgoers who waited in long lines for an autographed copy of his book urged him to run for president again. In the next few weeks, his book-signing tour will take him back to Iowa, the site of the upset caucus victory that brought him to the front rank of the 2008 campaign.

Last month, a national Rasmussen poll of Republicans found the former governor in first place in an early trial heat of potential GOP nominees. He had 29 percent, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 24 percent; former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was at 18 percent; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich took 14 percent; and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had 4 percent.

Such a finding can't be considered a meaningful guide to the odds on a race three years away; at the same time in the 2008 election cycle, Mr. Huckabee would not even have been an asterisk in the standings. Still, his partisans are encouraged that in a similar Rasmussen survey, last summer, he was essentially tied with Ms. Palin, a clear potential rival for the social conservatives who were the key to his Iowa upset.

Speaking to reporters after the second of the two services in which he spoke, Mr. Huckabee insisted that, despite "all this hype about 2012," it was too early for any candidate to be making plans for the next presidential election.

"We're not even a year into this administration," he said. Mr. Huckabee noted that the 2012 landscape would be shaped by any number yet-to-be-determined events, prominent among them being the results of next year's mid-term congressional elections.

Reflecting some of the same currents that steered Mr. Huckabee's come-from-behind triumph over the better-funded Mr. Romney in the 2008 caucuses, and some of the current fissures in the national GOP, the Iowa Republican party is now going through an intense internal battle in the early stages of a wide open race to choose its gubernatorial nominee next year.

Another case of GOP fratricide is playing out in upstate New York, where the Republican nominee in a special congressional election, Dede Scozzafava, suspended her campaign over the weekend and endorsed her Democratic opponent in the face of a challenge from a more conservative candidate, Doug Hoffman. Mr. Hoffman surged ahead of the GOP establishment choice on the strength his own attacks and those of national conservative voices who assailed Ms. Scozzafava for her more liberal views on social issues such as abortion.

While some Republicans have bemoaned the special election infighting as an impediment to GOP efforts to portray itself as a "big tent" party, Mr. Huckabee said the developments were healthy.

"The Republican Party is strongest when it's a conservative party," he said. As an example, he cited former President George H.W. Bush. Mr. Huckabee ascribed the 41st president's 1988 victory to the fact that he ran then as a conservative. In 1992, he argued, Mr. Bush lost to Bill Clinton because he had moved middle on issues such as taxes.

Hundreds of churchgoers formed a line that persisted for more than an hour after the second of his two sermons. Mostly they waited for Mr. Huckabee to personalize their books. Many posed for pictures with the once and perhaps future White House aspirant. A few had more unusual requests.

With traffic backed up on choked Ohio Township roads, the church had briefly delayed the starting time of its second service. To fill the unplanned gap, Mr. Huckabee, who plays with his band, The Little Rockers, on his Fox television show, borrowed a bass guitar to join in an impromptu concert with the church's musicians.

Keren Lee, the owner of the Fender bass, smiled as Mr. Huckabee autographed its neck.

"He's a good player," Mr. Lee said. "He knows what he's doing."

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