Mike Huckabee
Republican presidential hopeful, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, speaks at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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After his triumph in Iowa and third-place finish in New Hampshire, Mike Huckabee showed up Wednesday night for another Colbert bump.

An earlier bump pushed Huckabee to the front of the Republican presidential pack, the candidate assured TV comic Stephen Colbert.

"The only reason I'm the front-runner now is because of the Colbert bump," a mostly straight-faced Huckabee told the host of "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. "If it were not for that I would not be sitting in this chair, I would be probably somewhere serving hamburgers at a drive-in restaurant."

Colbert, in a split-screen interview, then ran Huckabee through a series of questions about the candidate's policies.

Example: Would he chase Osama bin Laden into hell, as rival candidate John McCain said Wednesday he would do?

"And beyond," Huckabee said. "I will charge hell with a water pistol if necessary."

Colbert, who abandoned his own 2008 presidential bid after the South Carolina Democratic Party voted to keep him off its primary ballot, said he was still willing to be Huckabee's running mate, as Huckabee apparently had promised earlier. Colbert said his "foreign policy" experience trips to Sandals resorts in Jamaica, the Bahamas would help answer Huckabee critics that the former Arkansas governor lacked such.

Just in case, though, Colbert then gave Huckabee a chance to take back his running mate promise publicly.

"Stephen, please, be my running mate," Huckabee said.

"Yes, a thousand times yes," was Colbert's answer.

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