McCain, Huckabee: Pals, yes, but mates?

John McCain and Mike Huckabee always acted more like friends than rivals when they ran against one another in the Republican presidential primaries.

Their easy camaraderie was on full display as they campaigned together here Friday, sharing barbecued ribs while batting away questions from reporters about whether they might be running mates in the fall.

The former Arkansas governor bowed out of the presidential race March 4 after McCain built an insurmountable lead, bolstered by wins that night in Texas and Ohio. During a news conference Friday at the historically black Arkansas Baptist College, Huckabee teased that he’d been a touch too soft on the Arizona senator.

“Sometimes I got accused of being in collusion with him during the course of the campaign -- that we were somehow forming some unholy alliance,” Huckabee said, alluding to the days when he and McCain pounded fellow Republican contender Mitt Romney but not one another.

“I’m blessed in that I don’t have to come here and try to unsay some things that I said in the course of the campaign,” Huckabee said. “If anything, maybe I was a little too generous in my comments, because now I’m here supporting him instead of the other way around.”

McCain refused to say whether Huckabee was on his list of potential vice presidential candidates: “We’re not talking about any names.”

But McCain said he believed Huckabee could help him carry some of the Southern states and be “a great asset” to his campaign. “Gov. Huckabee established a reputation throughout the nation with his victories,” McCain said, adding that he hoped Huckabee could fit in some time on the campaign trail while writing a book this fall.

They made an early-afternoon visit to the Whole Hog Cafe, a barbecue joint that dishes out pulled pork, ribs and sliced beef brisket with seven kinds of sauce. During a lengthy tour of the kitchen, McCain insisted on peering into the smoker and tried to coax a recipe out of the owners.

Diners at the Whole Hog chatted about McCain’s eventual Democratic opponent. Ken Wass, 44, a political independent who works as a project manager at a nearby data processing company, said he was reluctant to vote for McCain because of the candidate’s commitment to staying in Iraq and his age (71). “He’s too old,” Wass said.

But Wass said that if McCain faced New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the fall, he’d reconsider. “I just don’t trust her. . . . She has a history in this state,” Wass said, adding that he thought she interfered too much in policy when her husband was Arkansas’ governor.

Wass’ lunch mate, Jay Bolling, a 53-year-old Republican, said he was deciding between Obama and McCain. “My only reservation about McCain is his commitment to stay in the war,” said Bolling, a production manager at the data processing company. Asked about his hesitation with Obama, he said: “Just experience.”

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maeve.reston@latimes.com