I know I’m a Democrat but I love this guy. He seems to give off a persona of honesty and I like that.

– What success Mike Huckabee has found as a presidential candidate stems largely from his homespun charm – a folksy populism that gets heads nodding when he muses about the Lava soap his skin had to endure during a childhood filled with more want than wealth.

But if the former Arkansas governor wants to find greater success and become a first-tier player in the Republican primary race, he faces having to turn his wise-cracking image on its head and start trying to turn attack dog.

And that transformation has already begun.

Without naming names, Huckabee is using his second-place finish at the Iowa GOP’s straw poll Aug. 11 to take aim at Mitt Romney, the winner at Ames.

In media appearances and on the stump, the normally sunny Huckabee is using barbed language to portray Romney as a politically expedient and wealthy spendthrift who can’t relate to the day-to-day problems of average Americans.

“Here’s a guy who didn’t just become pro-life to run for president,” Huckabee said of himself at a dinner of 100 Republicans gathered here last week for spaghetti and meatballs and political rhetoric. “Here’s a guy who didn’t just read the latest issue of NRA magazine and decide he’s going to be for the Second Amendment.”

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