Huckabee Raises Money for McDonnell

Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate, will spend two days in Virginia at the end of March to help Robert F. McDonnell raise money for his gubernatorial campaign.

Huckabee will headline fundraisers in Roanoke and Bristol on March 30 and in Virginia Beach on March 31. The Baptist preacher and TV host will play the bass guitar.

A succession of national GOP figures have already helped McDonnell, the Republican nominee for governor.

Former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani have hosted fundraisers. Former presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, will appear with McDonnell at the McLean home of R. Carter Pate, McCain's Virginia finance chairman, on Wednesday.

The race in Virginia will present the first major test for a Republican Party battered by defeats in state and national races across the country last year. The contest will come a year before much of the rest of the nation returns to the polls, for the 2010 midterm elections, and is likely to set the tone for the party moving forward.