The Hill News

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) misspoke when he said in a recent radio interview that President Obama grew up in Kenya, he said Tuesday.

"As I have stated on page 1 of my new book 'A Simple Government' and in numerous interviews with dozens of reporters - I don't believe there is an issue with Barack Obama's birth certificate," Huckabee said according to a post on his political action committee website. "However, I do believe there are serious issues with the President's policies, and I have been openly opposed to the President's world view.

In a radio interview with WOR radio on Monday, Huckabee s! aid that because Obama grew up in Kenya, he has different views than many Americans.

"[I]f you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather," Huckabee said in the interview.

Huckabee added that there’s a lot about Obama's views he "would love" to have clarified.

Although Huckabee didn't say that Obama was born outside of the U.S., Huckabee's comments call to mind the claims by the so-called "birthers" movement. They say Obam was born outside the country and not in Hawaii, despite a birth certificate that attests to that, and is therefore ineligible to be president.

Along those lines, some argue Obama is Muslim. Last week, Huckabee struck down those rumors saying the president is a Christian! .

Obama spent some of his childhood years with his ! mother i n Indonesia, not Kenya. In his book, “Dreams From My Father,” he describes a distant relationship with his father.

Prominent Republicans have been split on the birthers claim. Some have flatly rejected it, while others have tried to dodge a straight answer.

Huckabee could run for president in 2012 and has said he plans to make a final decision soon. A Winthrop University poll released Wednesday found Huckabee the frontrunner, by far, in a handful of southern states among potential GOP contenders.