Huckabee Keeps Fighting

CBSNews.com Reports: Trailing Badly In Delegate Count, Huckabee Refuses To Clear The Way For Presumptive GOP Nominee McCain

(CBS)  This story was written by CBSNews.com political reporter Brian Montopoli.

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Barring a significant and unforeseen development involving John McCain, Mike Huckabee will not be the Republican nominee for president.

But that hasn't kept the former Arkansas governor from staying in the race, a decision that has forced McCain to keep focused on the primaries instead of shifting gears for the general election.

On Tuesday, McCain beat Huckabee by less than ten percentage points in the Virginia primary, despite McCain's status as the clear frontrunner.

"He's exposing the soft underbelly of the nominee," conservative activist Bay Buchanan said of Huckabee. "He's reminding people that this is a man who can't motivate the base of the party to go out and enthusiastically support him."

The McCain campaign has largely been respectful of Huckabee's decision to remain in the race. On Wednesday, however, McCain admitted that he would prefer Huckabee exit as soon as possible.

“Of course I’d like for him to withdraw today. It would be much easier,” McCain said. “But I respect...his right to continue in this race just as long as he wants to."

Huckabee has vowed to keep fighting at least until McCain has every single one of the 1,191 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination. He says voters deserve an election, not a coronation.

"I know people say that the math doesn't work out," Huckabee said recently. "Folks, I didn't major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in those too."

Indeed, a miracle is now perhaps Huckabee's best hope. According to CBS News estimates, McCain has 815 delegates at this point, and needs 376 more to clinch the nomination. Huckabee, meanwhile, has just 199 delegates - not many more than Mitt Romney, who left the race last week and endorsed McCain on Thursday. (Click here for state-by-state delegate tallies)

After McCain won all three contests in the Potomac Primary on Tuesday, his campaign manager, Rick Davis, released a memo arguing that it was "mathematically impossible" for Huckabee to secure the nomination.

"He would need to win 123 percent of remaining delegates,” Davis wrote in the memo.

But Huckabee remains undaunted.

"When he got into this race a year ago he said he was going to run for president and that's what he's doing," said Huckabee campaign manager Chip Salzman. "He's not a quitter."

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said he supports Huckabee's decision to stay in the race.

"If you simply stop the primary right now and say John McCain is the nominee, and you have all of these voters who are passionate about the issues that Mike Huckabee addresses, it takes them off the table, and I think in the end it makes it harder for the party to unify in November and support the Republican candidate," said Perkins.

Asked if Huckabee's decision to remain in the race will push McCain further towards conservative positions, Perkins responded, "absolutely."

"He's a complex political animal," Rice University professor Michael Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power, said of Huckabee. "I think he has loyalties to the Republican establishment as well as his evangelical constituents."

Lindsay believes that Huckabee is interested in "establishing himself as the next champion of the evangelical cause in a post-George W. Bush era."

"The results in Virginia were a message to Republican establishment that they have to extend an olive branch to this important part of their constituency," he added.

But Huckabee isn't necessarily trying to position himself as a traditional Christian leader, said Christianity Today's Ted Olsen.

"I doubt that he has designs on becoming the next Jim Dobson or Gary Bauer," said Olson. "I don't think you're going to see Mike Huckabee ministries coming out of this."

There has been talk of Huckabee as a potential vice presidential candidate for McCain, one who could deliver evangelical votes for the Republican ticket. But Buchanan argues that Huckabee has "reduced his chances of becoming the vice president dramatically" by staying in the race about two weeks longer than McCain would have liked.

And there's another factor that argues against Huckabee as a vice presidential pick: McCain doesn't do as badly with evangelical voters as one might think. On Super Tuesday, as Olsen points out, McCain picked up 29 percent of the evangelical vote, only five percentage points less than Huckabee. (Romney took 31 percent.)

"The question is are [evangelicals] really going to jump ship if you give them someone like McCain, who has a good record on abortion, who has a good record on a lot of issues that they care about," said Olsen. "It's not like McCain can't attract any evangelicals."

Even if he isn't tapped to be vice president, Huckabee could potentially fill a prominent role as an emissary to the evangelical community in a McCain administration. He does have some competition in that department, however, most notably from conservative Sen. Sam Brownback, who has been campaigning with McCain. And the longer he stays in the race, the more he risks alienating the frontrunner.

Nonetheless, Huckabee has run a shoestring campaign, and it seems feasible that he could keep it running at least until March 4th, when voters in four states, including Texas, go to the polls. Another few weeks of media coverage certainly won't hurt his national profile, and his extended run now could position him for another run at the nomination in 2012 or 2016.

And as Huckabee's paid speech to the Young Caymanian Leadership Awards in the Cayman Islands this weekend reminds us, all the exposure also isn't going to hurt his speaking fees.

"Every time he speaks he reminds people of his charisma and his charm and eloquence," said CBS News political consultant Nicolle Wallace.

But Wallace warns that Huckabee runs a risk in remaining in the race much longer.

"If he drags this out and stays in the race another two, three, four, five weeks, I think a lot of people in the party and hopefully in the press will really question his motives," she said.

[quetzal0666]

A Right Wing Evangelical Party.....
so sweet, for now, but be forewarned nothing
good ever comes out of nominating preachers to high office, eventually they will want to dictate
morality to the rest of us and the world,
they will turn this country into a Religious intolerant society,.....
they will opress free speech, trample on the Bill of Rights, and do it all in the name of God....

[prinzowhales]

Romney has shown his true colours by backing "Open Borders" McCain. McCain is, quite frankly, a security risk who has betrayed this country by making 32 propaganda films for the North Vietnamese. He is married to the daughter of a man who is part and parcel of organized crime in Arizona. He is for not prosecuting the drug gangsters of MS13 for all of their crimes--murder, rape child molesting-- and allowing them citizenship.

Let me be perfectly clear--ONLY IGNORANT HUMAN GARBAGE WILL SUPPORT THIS MAD MONSTER!! His North Vietnamese interrogators called this collaborator-- "the Songbird". He had a private apartment where he would entertain girls provided by the NV...when he came back to his fellow prisoners, he would tell them he was in solitary!

I will not be governed by this treasonous animal! No American who walks upright can!!

GO TO: http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/

[marinepatriot]

We have all seen now, that a vote for "Romney" was the vote for Mccain.

We can still stop Mccain. And we can still elect our conservative choice. We do not know yet where Romneys delegates are going to choose to go. I would think that they would all line up behind Huckabee.

We all feel cheated by the unethical things Romney did over the past couple of months. So do something about it. Join up at www.mikehuckabee.com and get involved. Make phone calls from your home, go wave signs, send emails, donate money.

We can still win this. Do not let the media fool you any longer by saying it is over. It is not. We need big wins over the up-coming States and we can make that happen.
We want Mike Huckabee for President.

[gkc99]

"Huckabee said recently. "Folks, I didn''t major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in those too." "

It will be a "miracle" worked by the Prince of Evil if this snake oil salesman comes a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

[singingrick]

We''ve had enough of psuedo-spiritual ultra religious wackos running our government.

[ilikemike6]

QUETZAL, ARE YOU AN AMERICAN? Did you not learn anything about the history and founding of our great land? You are trampling on the very foundation of our great constitution, and the writers and founders and true heroes who shed their pious blood to establish this great nation and who DID NOT turn this country into an intolerant society, but actually gave YOU the right to spout all of your venomous speech! It was a Christian who stated:"The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude toward the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf. And it is my earnest prayer that we may so conduct ourselves as to merit a continuance of those blessings with which we have hitherto been favored." George Washington

[prinzowhales]

Here is a short article on the torture of an al Jazeera jounalist engaged in a hunger strike at the at the Guantanamo Camps and Torture Centers:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002395

Your Demopublican Party supports this kind of treatment of your fellow man. The enemy is in Washington!--It is Demopublican!

[ilikemike6]

Read what one "pseudo-spiritual ultra religious wackos running our government" wrote, singingrick:

"I have lived sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And, if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that %u2018except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.;

"I firmly believe this; and I also believe, that, without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel;...

"I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business: and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."
Benjamin Franklin

[jack3213]

ok, I''ll say it nicer: Time to hang it up Huck. Do the math. Can''t have a Presient who can''t do math. LOL.

[ilikemike6]

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports... Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." - George Washington,

[ajsupernanny]

I thought he might be honest and trustworthy until he got in cahoots with Kenneth Copeland...that was enough for me..greed and power is not what I am looking for in a president.

[ajsupernanny]

I thought he might be ok until his miralce money flowed from the pockets of Kenneth Copeland.

[singingrick]

ILikeMike6


I don''t care if you do like Mike. The founders set up a wall between church and state with good reason. The combination of the two corrupts both.

[singingrick]

ilikemike


"Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?" Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O''Conner


Study the history of the European Christian theocratic states and you''ll find that she''s right. Look at the Muslim theocratic states for a modern example.

[singingrick]

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-- President Thomas Jefferson: in letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813

[quetzal0666]

ILikeMike6 ...

yadda yadda yadda.....
Mr Copeland needs $$$$ Fat Hagee wants a rebuilt wall
in Jerusalem, why dont ya go help out a bit....

[ilikemike6]

It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it. -George Washington

Nay say as you will-words of wisdom and truth ring true down through the ages! Words of hatred, cursing, venom and spite are lost with those who speak them!

[gwagener]

The ''miracle'' Huckabee is waiting on is for McCain to suddenly have to withdraw for something like a health problem (he is 72) or a scandel.

[ilikemike6]

John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and one of the three men most responsible for the U.S. Constitution stated, ''''Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty - as well as the privilege and interest - of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.''''

[ilikemike6]

God rules this world. It is the duty of nations as well as men to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow... and to recognize the sublime truths that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord." - Abraham Lincoln

[ilikemike6]

singing rick: "I support the doctrine of separation of church and state as traditionally interpreted to prohibit the establishment of an official national religion. But this does not mean that we should divorce government from any formal recognition of God. To do so strikes a potentially fatal blow at the concept of the divine origin of our rights, and unlocks the door for an easy entry of future tyranny. If Americans should ever come to believe that their rights and freedoms are instituted among men by politicians and bureaucrats, they will no longer carry the proud inheritance of their forefathers, but will grovel before their masters seeking favors and dispensations -- a throwback to the feudal system of the Dark Ages." Ezra Taft Benson

[ilikemike6]

ajsupernanny:
Would an American stoop so low as to pass judgement upon a fellow citizen for a charge brought against him, being unheard and untried and yet only just ACCUSED?
If so, how could that person call themselves an American, seeing as they are not willing to live by and acknowledge the laws and rights governing every free man to be presumed innocent until proven guilty?

[prinzowhales]

Here is one of Bush''s Crusaders--a piece of cr*p who disgraces the uniform of the United States Army-- bragging about the mass rape of a 15 year old Iraqi girl who then hung herself. This animal and his associates need to be hunted down and brought to justice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=fQnv2H4uv08

Bush and his Demopublican Regime and their war against humanity must end, one way or another! If you vote for them, you are complicit in these crimes!

[quetzal0666]

ILikeMike6 ....

Separation of church and State, a wonderful thing,

oh and im not against God, or christianity,

Just the Followers who would have me do as they do
and not as they say.....

[byeneocons]

"To do so strikes a potentially fatal blow at the concept of the divine origin of our rights"

Can anyone prove our rights were derived from divinity?

[billconn2]

The only miracle Huckabee and the evangelists believe in is the right to legislate our morals:i.e. their so-called moral values: elimination of our rights of choice regarding civil unions, abortion, stem cell research, etc. They couldn''t care less about anything else. What they won''t accept is that we live in a Democracy and not a Theocracy.
He''s been quoted as saying words to the effect that the U.S.Constitution should be amended to God''s values. Will he decide which God?

[davide73-2009]

The endorsements of John McCain by Mitt Romney and former President Bush tell me that Mike Huckabee is still perceived as a formidable threat to win the Republican nomination, despite the media assurance that the contest is over. And why are they so afraid of Huckabee? Because he could institute reform in the tax code and elsewhere that would level the playing field, and that scares them to death, as it does their flunkies, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, et al.

But it is too late. The people are so disgusted with the way this country is being run that they are going to turn the Presidency over to the Democrats. The Republicans could have kept the Presidency if they had coalesced around Huckabee, but now they have cut off their nose to spite their face.

How pathetic.

[jimfinster]

If you want a theocracy, vote for Huckabee.

[billconn2]

Huckabee becoming vice-president scares me as much as much as his becoming president, considering McCain''s age. The ''other'' conservatives (the elite) don''t care, just as long as they win the White House. That''s another miracle that scares me.

[prinzowhales]

Learn about the evil of the Demopublican Party whose candidates you are voting for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch

?v=fQnv2H4uv08

Here is a frank admission of gross violations of the UCMJ, international human rights and the Geneva Convention!--And still the Demopublican garbage make no arrests...do nothing in the face of such crimes that bring dishonor and shame on our entire nation!

[billconn2]

To all conservatives: Be careful what you wish for!

[ilikemike6]

prinzo-wails:
The example of an evil person is no reflection on all the good people in the world or of those brave soldiers who have given and risked their lives for your freedom so you can sit at your computer and right all of this negative hate. If you really want to talk about the ''war against humanity'' consider this: More innocent Americans have been murdered by our own citizens than all of our men who have fought and died in all the wars ever fought! Over 53 MILLION Americans have been slaughtered by their own mothers, since the so-called legalization of abortion!!! Cruelly dismembered, burned or murdered AS they are being born by stabbing scissors into their necks and suctioning their little brains out of their living heads! Talk about cruelty and torture? Since the start of the Iraq war, alone, 6,353,171 babies have been murdered through abortion!
I''ve seen the enemy- and it-is- US!

[davide73-2009]

The venal comments that Mike Huckabee continues to run for President because he could get better public speaking fees or have his own talk show make me so angry I would like to do those cynics what Ed Rollins would like to do to Mitt Romney. And I believe the majority of Americans feel exactly the same way. America is in grave danger, not from Al Qaeda, but from its own moral degradation. Either the country return to government of the people, by the people, and for the people, or there will be civil war.

[jimfinster]

ILikeMike6:

Anytime a Christian brings up abortion, you know they have lost the debate. It is a transparent attempt to use an emotional issue to obscure the lack of logic and reason for whatever position you might be arguing.

Huckabee has no merit at all as a presidential candidate. That is the issue at hand.

[dust27]

Whether the media likes it or not, Huck still has a chance. We need to vote for Huck, the only conservative in this race. I think we can all agree that McCain is no conservative and neither is Mitt.

[jimfinster]

"I know people say that the math doesn''t work out," Huckabee said recently. "Folks, I didn''t major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in those too."

Enough said. Does anyone REALLY want 8 more years of this kind of stupidity?

[rosesnpearls]

I''m glad he''s staying in the race. We voters have the right to a CHOICE of whom to vote for, not just take the PRESUMPTIVE candidate. With McCain, the Republican voters get a choice between an extreme Democrat (no matter whether Obama or Hillary) or a moderate Democrat who isn''t honest enough to switch parties (McCain).

[ontheleft]

"I know lots of former Soviets that proudly maintain their status as atheists. However, these same people have proven time and time again to live a more Christian lifestyle then most Evangelical Neocons that I have met in my life. I presume that this is because their socialist roots are far more compatible with Christianity than unfettered Republicon style anarchy and chaos.

Posted by neoconism at 11:21 AM"

Interesting observation. Right wing evangelical Christians tend to be the biggest war mongers in this country.

[jonsid2]

cHucklebee said he already has 12 superdelegates and he gave their names:
Matthew, Mark, Peter, Paul, Judas, Thomas,.............

[billconn2]

Enough said. Does anyone REALLY want 8 more years of this kind of stupidity?
WELL SAID jimfinster !!!

[dust27]

Why do people say that we should not put a Christian in office. They say that it violates separation of chuch and state, but have they ever thought about what kind of people started this country. Guess what 90% of them were Christians. And you have to put separation of church and state in context. The purpose was not to keep Christians out of govenment but government out of the Church. One of the reasons people came to America was to escape government intervention in the church of England.

[ontheleft]

I''m glad Huckabee is staying in the race. The more fractured the Republicans are, the better. I can understand why so many Republicans are not happy with him as the nominee. McCain has about as much excitement and appeal as a box of stale doughnuts.

[jamesm88888]

Huckabee is an unathentic candidate who has been propped up by Evangelical Christians and by a cunning mainstream media. Did you really think that the Media "really" liked Huckabee? In the end, the Evangelical Christians were the dopes.

Huckabee doomed the Republican primary and the November election to less than worthy semi-conservative nominee and a weak republican candidate: McCain.

To Huckabee supporters: Did you really think that he could have broad base appeal? C''mon... please think outside the confines of your Evangelical Christian world. The Republican party is bigger than just Evangelical Christians. We need ALL of the Republican party to win a Presidential election.

Evangelical religious intolerance for Mitt Romney led to a McCain win - the only true conservative (CPAC) with broad base appeal was Romney.

Had Evangelical Christian pastors side aside their doctrinal differences (and their fears), the Republican party would have the most conservative nominee right now: Romney

Thanks Evangelical Christians - I think your "prophesying" days are over. Thank God.

Huck''s not going to win. The Republicans are not going to win in November and the WORST possible outcome will have ocurred: more taxes, less conservative Supreme Court Justices, and a stagnant economy leading to a weaker military.

In a year or so, we''ll know who to blame and who NOT to listen to in 2012: Huckabee and his Evangelical Christian jihadists.

[prinzowhales]

Posted by ILikeMike6 at 11:33 AM : Feb 15, 2008
------------------------
The war is based on lies. It is known by all that this is so. This war cannot proceed without the support of War Pigs in Congress. And the War Pigs cannot reach Congress without the supporters of Demopublican voters.

This is not the case of one evil piece of human garbage--it is about an entire Regime of evil human garbage...Do you think that this crime--the MASS RAPE of a fifteen year old was only known to them?...Do you think that the medical people who examined her body missed the signs of the rape of a child by 10 men? No...the Golf Delta, Sierra-Oscar-Bravos who minded their own business and walked by...who ignored this crime as they have other crimes...the officers and ncos who looked the other way because commanders didn''t want to know about it...and the systemic organized and rampant terror supported by the US military and political establishment that is self-evident at Guantanamo and at Abu Graib and in the renditions and military tribunals...

This is an outrage and is not to be contenanced!-- And those who support it--they are to be condemned.

[joyous88]

yep just what america needs;

another four more of the same, four more years lieing, cheating, murdering, war mongering, evangelical christian
nutbars and looney tunes in the white house.

These clowns do not believe in evolution, and they get advice from an imaginary friend that lives in outer space, some freak called god

[ilikemike6]

DavidE73: You are so right-You have nailed it! What lies in the backs of all of their minds though, is, What if? What if Huckabee somehow can pull it off? What if America still has more people who stand for what is right than wrong? That is why they still see him as a formidable threat; because he IS one! That is why the media is working night and day to make people believe he has no chance and to put him down and belittle him-because they just don''t know for sure what is going to happen, and it''s as if they keep predicting things to go their way, they can make it happen, but of course, they can''t know for sure. They''ve said he was out after SC- Out after FL,and so on and YET...he keeps going and hanging in there and McCain hasn''t even raked in enough delegates yet! So it isn''t over and yes, the future may still hold some surprises! You''re right, Huckabee could implement real change in the tax system and they don''t want to disturb the status quo, because then that might mean that they really aren''t able to control the people of the United States with their propaganda and brainwashing, that apparently, (from reading many of these posts) has worked on a percentage of those who won''t think for themselves, but only espouse wrong vs. right and evil vs good; as well as the rhetoric of the media and politicians who tell them what they should think!

[dust27]

To James: Were do you think the overall morals of the conservative party come from.Duh, the Evangelical Christians. And to say that Mitt is a conservative is just messed up. Look at who he just endorsed, the most liberal Republican candite running. Also chech out Mitt record as govenor, he is anything but conservative

[prinzowhales]

I feel like starting a new organization "Scoundrels and Fools for McCain". This ''man'' is described as a "moderate" by some...a man whose jingle..."bombbombbomb, bombbomb Iran"...and his pledge ''to stay in Iraq for one hundred years'' should show that he utterly lacks any sense of moderation.

Not only that...but, he is infinitely blackmailable... His fellow POWS have reported his treason...He made 32 propaganda films for the North Vietnamese...His nickname given by interrogators was "Songbird"...He was provided with an apartment where he entertained women provided by his captors, and when he returned to the camp he told his fellow prisoners that he had been in solitary confinement.

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/

He is for open borders and amnesty...he is married into Arizona organized crime...There is no worse candidate for the presidency.

[pareidolia-2009]

They say that it violates separation of chuch and state, but have they ever thought about what kind of people started this country. Guess what 90% of them were Christians.

Posted by dust27


That is a flat out lie, dust27.

[pareidolia-2009]

DavidE73: You are so right-You have nailed it! What lies in the backs of all of their minds though, is, What if? What if Huckabee somehow can pull it off?
Posted by ILikeMike6

What IF my dog starts crapping gold nuggets? I will be rich! LOL