In what is sure to be a pattern among Republican candidates hoping to succeed George W. Bush as President in ’08, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee this morning spelled out some specific areas in which he disagreed with the incumbent President of his own party.

Speaking to a standing-room-only breakfast of reporters in Washington hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, Huckabee strongly hinted that he would have talked to Maumoud Admadinejad when the Iranian President was at the United Nations last year (which Bush pointedly refused to do) and that he would have vetoed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law signed into law by President Bush in his first term.

Addressing the current conflict in Iraq, the former Arkansas governor said "I would talk to Iran and Syria and not leave anything off the table." So far, the Bush Administration has ruled out a dialogue on Iraq with the regimes in Tehran and Damascus.

When I asked Huckabee whether he would have talked to Ahmandinejad when he was at the U.N. last year, the ’08 GOP presidential hopeful replied, "maybe not directly," and strongly hinted he would have made some contact with the Iranian leader. He added that "it is not a sign of weakness when you talk to someone who is your polar opposite. I get my views reinforced all the time by talking to people I disagree with."

Huckabee went on to say "there has to be some re-evaluation" of what is now happening in Iraq and it is critical to address "what happens over the next five-to-10 years." Citing an axiom from a favorite college professor, the former governor said it was important "not to ever use your water on too small a fire, because another fire may come -- say, in North Korea or Iran."

Talking with David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times and me after breakfast, Huckabee also weighed in strongly against McCain-Feingold and the stepped-up federal regulation of elections since the mid-1970s. "It's done more to deform than reform," he said of campaign finance legislation, noting that McCain-Feingold "hasn't changed politics and empowered the 527s," which have less restraints than standard campaign vehicles. After saying without hesitation, "I would not have signed McCain-Feingold," the Arkansan told me his vision of campaign finance "was a strong First Amendment approach -- prohibit nothing, report everything."