Huckabee Plays Defense Huckabee Plays Defense
February 25, 2008 01:00 PM EST
"I read a very interesting article on February 20th that pointed out the campaign of Mike Huckabee was in trouble, as it hadn’t won a state since February 9th, a whopping 11 days prior over a span that included five primaries.
Of course, were the Huckabee campaign making plans based on winning Virginia, Maryland, DC, Washington State, or Wisconsin, one would have to question the sanity of Campaign Manager Ed Rollins. Texas has long been pointed to as the key. A neighboring state to Huckabee’s home state of Arkansas. Huckabee had actually lived in Texas for four years. The State’s large population of Religious Conservatives, and its status as the home of Chuck Norris makes it the best spot for Huckabee to make his next big win. Odds are against him, but that’s never stopped Huckabee before.
Getting There
To make it to Texas, Huckabee had to keep his campaign alive through the Potomac Primaries, Washington, and Wisconsin. There had to be signs of life going into Texas, and in this line-up of primaries that would be hard to achieve. All told, Huckabee’s campaign did the best they could and have a shot at Texas.
February 12th’s primaries in Virginia, DC, and Maryland. Maryland’s GOP generally leaned left, particularly on social issues. DC’s GOP was dominated by liberal Republicans and establishment insiders. Virginia is perhaps the least conservative state in the South, with a very strong establishment wing that has elected a bane of conservatives, Senator John Warner, to five terms in the US Senate.
So, on February 12, Huckabee’s primary focus was on Virginia. He turned a 32 point deficit after Super Tuesday into a 9-point loss, making up 23 points in record time. Huckabee won several congressional districts in Virginia, but as the state was winner-take-all, this didn’t matter towards the delegate count.
Next up was Washington and Wisconsin. Washington’s primary was mail-in and several weeks worth of voting having already completed, Huckabee had little chance to make an impact. Given that 10 of the 19 delegates won that day would be divied up proportionally and 1 each given to the winner of each of Washington’s 9 Congressional districts, there was little reward to campaigning there. No matter what, he’d pick up 2-3 delegates Statewide, and the chances of swaying a delegate in any of the congressional districts was narrow. Instead, Huckabee focused on Wisconsin, and while Huckabee lost statewide, his campaign won a contiguous fifteen county area (Hucksconsin if you will) including two congressional districts and has apparently won all six delegates from District 3 and 7. Now, he looks ahead to Texas, and to a lesser extent, Ohio.
Huckabee has said winning Texas changes everything, and it does. A win in Texas will make McCain’s job of getting to 1191 harder for McCain to do before the convention. McCain has heretofore done very well in Blue States. After March 4th, the only Blue States remaining to vote are Pennsylvania and Oregon. On the other hand, Red States abound: Mississippi, Indiana, North Carolina, Nebraska, Kentucky, Idaho, New Mexico, and South Dakota. A Huckabee win in Texas gives rise to the hope of political junkies the nation over, a brokered convention, a real convention in Minneapolis in September, along with a real debate over the party’s future. "
Editorial
THE CONSERVATIVE VOICE As you look at the Rep party it seems to have lost its socially conservative message this time around.PPL,including Republicans,evidently are more interested in voting pocketbook/national defense issues than those issues we held in such regard;family,abortion,marriage.Or as Huckabee puts it;FAITH,FAMILY,FREEDOM.
Fortunately Texas,unlike Wisconsin,may be more conservative and give Huckabee a better chance.If Huckabee should win Texas it would turn the race on its head.
But this is not just all about Huckabee either.It is what the Republican party stands for.If it gets to the point you can't see daylight between a Rep candidate and a Dem one we are in trouble.
God Bless,
p4p
Re: Huckabee Plays Defense i have like 2 seconds to fly through this.
It would give Mike,not McCain,a pretty decent size of delegates.The less John McCain gets the better.Not so much as how many Huckabee gets-those won't count.He's not even near enough to get the 1,191.The trick is to keep McCain from getting that as well.
Texas could certainly help that alot.Next,the momentum that would give Mike going into Ohio.That can't be overlooked.Momentum isn't everything in a race,but it does help.
The news coverage Mike would get-which till now has been noticeably absent.Notice how they see the Dem race as 2 man and nobody is asking Hillary why she isn't dropping out.Every time Mike is actually interveiwed(and it's rare)they ask this question over and over.
The coverage couldn't hurt him one bit and it would have an impact on McCain's campaign.The problem with the media was their immediate presumption that McCain was the winner.They had a coronation ofJohn weeks ago-which is about where they're at with Obama.
I can recall before the race even started how they had crowned it Hillary and Rudy.
This upset would certainly turn the media on its head. This would be THE story.They couldn't ignore it.
The delegates would keep McCain's down and more than likely at this point send the process off to a brokered convention.Now Mike doesn't necessarily win at brokered convention but his chances are way better there.It has happened before.
Last but not least the media put 82 delegates in the McCain column.Well, i did some research.Those delegates are NOT pledged yet and they don't get pledged TILL the convention.The media had a lot of nerve doing that.
They assume they will go to McCain and they very well could but you don't put them in the McCain column untl they're IN the McCain column and they are free to pledge to whomever they want.It doesn't have to be McCain.
What has happened here is that the media (much of it)has handed the nomination over to McCain giving ppl the impression that Huckabee doesn't have a snowballs chance in you know where.The public then throws in the towel and says well,we may as well vote for the winner.That's self fullfilling.Your candidate doesn't get the votes unless you give him the votes.The media had a habit of jumping ahead of the gun before in these elections and calling a winner too soon.One of two things happen.They look stupid because the winner they called didn't win.
Or the ppl who were voting figured what was the use and either voted for a guy they thought was winning anyway-or gave up and didn't vote.
I think they've learned that lesson since then;but they're still in the business of coronations and that's just wrong.
The state to watch then is Texas and from everything i've read it's still pretty conservative.
Of course we've noticed some of the other supposed conservative states weren't that conservative this year. It seems to be a trend,but Texas fairly solid rep of being conservative could give this state to Huckabee.
HOPING AND PRAYING FOR A BROCKERED CONVENTION!!
AND TEXAS!
God Bless,
p4p
some polls show it very close.Others a bigger (but not that big)margin.
Re: Huckabee Plays Defense You must be using slang I am not used to with "lemon pie". There is slang identified with that term, but nothing I would get into.
Mike "Crush those hard drives!" Huckster can't have Texas. If he wins, he might take my hard drive away and crush it. Or try to sing to me. I rather have Hoa Tran's herbal medicine.
--- Guilty people wear pumpkins for Landmine Awareness Day.
