February 10: Huckabee News Roundup

Here are a couple of must reads. First from CBS News' Joy Lin:

It may be miracles he’s espousing, but Mike Huckabee’s done a little math of his own. Even if he might not be able to attain 1,191 votes necessary to win, he’s banking on the possibility John McCain can’t either.

“If John McCain doesn’t get 1,191 delegates, this goes to the convention, all bets are off,” Huckabee told reporters. “And after the first ballot anybody can end up being the nominee.”

So what if Karl Rove went on CBS' Face the Nation saying it’s implausible that Huckabee will get the numbers necessary to win the nomination. Huckabee’s response: “Karl Rove has also maxed out personal contributions to John McCain … The fact the opposing team has their cheerleaders and band blowing songs against me hardly motivates me to quit. It only motivates me to play harder.”

For Huckabee, the game is not over.

“I’m really not very persuaded by the party officials and the party establishment who come out now and are saying 'Oh, well John McCain has 700 delegates, we oughta just quit,'” said Huckabee.

“When they wrote the rules, it said you had to have 1,191. So why did they write the rules for that game of play and now want to change the rules, that’s crazy. And so, you know, I’m playing by the rules that were written for me and I’m not trying to make them and I’m not trying to break them, so we’ll continue doing it.”

Referencing Hillary Clinton’s tearful moments in recent months, Huckabee said, “If I cried and whined every time someone ignored me in this, I’d quit a year ago. But you have to realize that in every stage of this, there’s yet to be a time when the pundits said, Huckabee’s the guy to pull this off…I’m enjoying it if no other reason than to just intimidate the daylights out of all the other people who feel like they have it figured out.”

Following what he called an “overwhelming” win in Kansas and “shocking” victory in Louisiana, Huckabee said he felt “confident” going into Virginia.

"When [your opponents] really don’t think you have a chance, they ignore you. When they say bad things about you, they fear you. So the fact that I’m being asked to leave and all these things are being said, it’s an extraordinary honor. I don’t necessarily enjoy it, but I sure appreciate it."

And from David Stokes at Townhall:

In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s still a long time until the Republican National Convention, which doesn’t convene until Labor Day (September 1st) in Minneapolis. This will be the latest any major party convention has ever been held. The Democrats will meet in Denver the week before.

Mr. Huckabee’s continued campaign is actually very healthy for the party and the process, calls for stop-the-race unity notwithstanding. First, though Romney suggested that a protracted campaign would delay a party-wide national campaign, it’s actually more likely that any such national unity campaign, with the nomination being a done deal, would compete poorly for media attention as compared to the apparent fight to the finish of the other gal and guy.

The Democrats will have high drama while the Republicans could become the victims of the political equivalent of writer’s strike-driven viewer apathy. There simply will be no news there. Shadow boxing seldom draws the crowd a real match does – even a seemingly uneven one.

Then there is the personality thing. Mike Huckabee has one. John McCain is a great American, but he is not a great communicator. As people look for the “Reagan-factor” these days, I think it must be acknowledged that he was a president known first and foremost as The Great Communicator. And, if Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate in the fall, Mr. McCain will make many people long for the witty charm of Bob Dole.

Governor Huckabee is a dynamic and charismatic communicator who could go toe to toe with Obama in the war of words that a presidential campaign essentially becomes. His preacher training would serve him well.

Conservatives should take a good look at Mike Huckabee before all is finally said and done.

It’s still early in February – and a long way to September and November.

Read the whole thing...