Preacher presidential hopeful keeps fighting despite the odds
Surely now it must be time for the wisecracking, guitar-playing rocker, Baptist preacher and presidential hopeful to step off the stage.
Or maybe not because, for the love of God, literally, this guy does not give up easy.
“If God wants him in, he’ll win,” said Lissa Eske, a Huckabee supporter in Wisconsin, a state of strongly independent people, equal parts very liberal and deeply conservative where all the remaining candidates have been campaigning ahead of next week’s primary.
One time Republican hopeful Mitt Romney this week stepped in behind John McCain, some might say he flip flopped in after the bruising and often personally bitter battle between the two in the earlier primaries.
Mr Romney called on the 200 or so delegates he garnered in the election race to unite behind Mr McCain for the good of the Republican party.
Former Arkansas Governor Huckabee is not impressed. “Right now there’s a great big me-too crowd coming together,” he said after hearing the news of the Romney endorsement.
“There’s a lot of the folks sort of in the establishment of the party that is now not wanting to be left out.”
Mr Huckabee made clear he’s still in the race. “I didn’t major in math, I majored in miracles in college,” he said. “But here’s the math I do know. No one has yet received 1,191, and until that happens, we don’t have a nominee.”
With Mr Romney’s delegates, Mr McCain is only about 100 short of that figure, though, under the rules, they are not bound to switch their support to him. Mr McCain genuinely likes Mr Huckabee as a person but shows some disdain.
Mr McCain diplomatically but dismissively says Mike Huckabee has a right to run.
Yet Mr Huckabee, by drawing support away from Mr Romney in the earlier primaries, was instrumental in Mr McCain seeing off that challenge. At times the two camps even seemed to be working together against the former Massachusetts governor.
Now, Mr McCain just wants Mr Huckabee to go away so he can concentrate on the general election and, more importantly, not spend any more of the all important cash locking up the nomination.
Mr Huckabee’s short-term goal is to remain in play until the March 4 primary in Texas, a huge state with a lot of delegates and a big old Bible Belt streak through its centre. It’s a state he believes he can win.
Supporters canvassed in Wisconsin are staying with him, even though he has little or no chance of winning the nomination. Their view is that his continued involvement keeps Mr McCain to the right.
John McCain is viewed with deep suspicion by some Republicans and even branded the worst insult, a “liberal”. He supports immigration reform, has voted against giving tax breaks that mainly benefited richer people and sponsored a bill to reform political campaign financing.
Even those who fundamentally oppose Mr Huckabee find it difficult to dislike him personally and his bowing out of the campaign will be greeted with some disappointment.
It’s not hard to see why.
Earlier this week, when asked whether he would run for senate if his presidential bid fails, Huckabee replied: “It’s more likely I’ll dye my hair green, get a bunch of tattoos and go on tour with Amy Winehouse.”
Democrats pretty have much avoided launching any attacks on Mr Huckabee, even as he swept up delegates in key states over the last six weeks. Yet this is a man who, in social terms, embodies many people’s worst nightmare — a fundamentalist Christian who believes in creationism, someone who has said he would rather have a constitution that reflected more the word of God, who would actively promote the traditional family and who just a few weeks ago equated homosexuality with bestiality.
A one-time presidential candidate, on being asked about religion, said he did not attend any church, and thanks for asking but don’t ask again.
That was everybody’s hero, the Republican Abraham Lincoln, 140 years ago. What’s the chance of him being nominated by his party today?
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