It’s been fun…

Well loyal readers, I’ve decided to put GrandRapids4Huckabee.com on hiatus. It’s become pretty clear that Mike Huckabee won’t be the nominee in 2008. He’s still fighting a great fight and standing up for the many things that you and I value, but the writing is on the wall.

Today Romney endorsed McCain and asked his delegates to vote for McCain, and while they are free to vote for whomever they like, most will probably vote for him. I know it’s still statistically possible for Mike to win, but it is very unlikely, and frankly I’ve run out of stuff to say. 

This has been one heck of a ride. Huckabee had about 4% of the national vote only six months ago when I started blogging and in that amount of time we’ve gotten to see Mike become one of the most important Republicans in national politics. I’m convinced that like Reagan in ’76, this is not the last we’ll see of Mike Huckabee. Thank you all for your loyal readership (is that a word?) – I really do appreciate it.

If you happen to be one of my readers who considers yourself as Christian and work in a corporate office setting, you might consider checking out my other blog, The Cubicle Congregation, which is dedicated to dealing with the spiritual challenges of corporate America.

Cheers for now,

 Ryan 

Huckabee Back in Grand Rapids

In case you missed it, here’s the story from Mlive.com:

Huckabee to speak in Grand Rapids in March

Posted by Gazette News Service February 12, 2008 15:58PM

GRAND RAPIDS — Mike Huckabee’s coming to Grand Rapids next month, but not to stump for votes.

The Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor will be the featured speaker at North Hills Classical Academy Spring Banquet on March 27 at Kent Country Club, where he’ll talk about education reform.

“He agreed to it right before the Iowa caucus so it was good timing for us,” said Tom Welch, business manager and grammar school principal at North Hills, a small private school at 2777 Knapp St. NE in Grand Rapids Township. The school connected with Huckabee through a speakers’ bureau.

Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister, is outspoken about education reform and an advocate of home-schooling.

“We have a very strong home-school partnership so it was just a very good fit for us,” Welch said.

Huckabee, who remains in the race for the Republican nomination despite a hearty lead by Arizona Sen John McCain, won’t talk politics during the banquet, Welch said, although he may answer a question or two.

“This is not a fundraiser for Huckabee,” Welch said. It’s a fundraiser for the school.

Previous speakers for the banquet include conservative Phyllis Schlafly and Josiah Bunting, former superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute.

Anyone interested in attending should call the school at 365-0525 for ticket prices and information.

Unfazed

If you haven’t seen it yet, Mike got beat pretty handily by McCain today in the Virginia, Maryland and DC primaries. None of these were really high on his list (although Mike needs every delegate he can pick up) and already he seems to be looking ahead to a few of the big primaries on the horizon. They are:

February 19: Washington, Wisconsin Primaries
March 4: Texas, Ohio, Vermont, Rhode Island Primaries

The big one here seems to be Texas. Look for Mike to focus heavily on it, and I’d imagine that the future of his campaign rests on how well he does there. It’s not over yet my friends!

Upcoming Primaries

What’s next for Huckabee? On Tuesday, Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC hold their primaries. Mike said he expects to perform better than originally expected in Maryland and Virginia, although he’s quite a bit behind McCain in recent polls. Those, however, don’t factor in any bump that Mike might get from doing so well in the primaries yesterday.

Speaking of yesterday, if you missed it, the state of Washington decided to stop counting the ballots with about 12+% of the votes uncounted. McCain, who was leading by only 2%, was declared the winner by the head of the state’s Republican party. As you can imagine, Mike is protesting and an investigation is being launched.

Finally, I’d like to point out that after my last post, a reader with the username “Deezer” correctly pointed out that Romney’s delegates are free to vote for whomever they like at the convention. This means that if Huckabee continues to outperform expectations that it’s possible that those delegates could help him to win the nomination. While still not easily achievable, Deezer is right, and I appreciate that point being made.

A Kansas Coup

What a wonderful surprise for Mike Huckabee to win 60% of the Kansas vote yesterday – and what a disheartening event for McCain. Mike also tied up Louisiana and may even pull out Washington after the votes are fully counted.

Having said that, I want to be straight with you – the chances of Mike winning the nomination in this race are nearly statistically impossible. He’d need to win over 85% of the roughly 1000 delegates left in play. It’s not going to happen. It’s also highly unlikely that McCain will choose him to be VP. McCain recently hinted that he’d want someone with a consistent political philosophy as him and he doesn’t feel that he needs to regionally balance the ticket (which is primarily what Mike would offer him). He might have been hinting at a Giuliani or Lieberman (not as much of a long-shot as some think) ticket, or perhaps he’ll please conservatives by picking a fiscal and social conservative. If Mike doesn’t get the VP nod, my hope is that Phil Graham or Jack Kemp get the nod. Even better, JC Watts would be stellar, but doesn’t seem interested in coming back to the political scene.

Having said that, we’re looking at the beginning, not the end, of Mike Huckabee’s role in natinal politics and these primary wins all but ensure he’ll play a bigger national role with the GOP in the future.

Dobson backs Huckabee

Boy, as soon as I said that I’d stop posting daily, all sorts of interesting stuff starts happening. First Romney backs out, and now James Dobson endorses Huckabee. I’m not a huge Dobson fan (I’m not sure I appreciate the reputation he’s earning us Evangelicals) but there’s no doubt that millions of Christians value his input. Here’s part of his statement,

“The remaining candidate for whom I could vote is Governor Huckabee,” Dobson said. “His unwavering positions on the social issues, notably the institution of marriage, the importance of faith and the sanctity of human life, resonate deeply with me and with many others … Obviously, the governor faces an uphill struggle, given the delegates already committed to Senator McCain. Nevertheless, I believe he is our best remaining choice for president of the United States.”

This will help Huckabee in the March Texas primary and may over the long haul help his chances of becoming McCain’s choice of VP if Mike doesn’t win the nomination.

And then there were two (plus Ron Paul)…

Well by now all of have probably heard that Romney has dropped out of the race. It’s amazing to me to think that Mike Huckabee has lasted this long given where he was just six short months ago. Go Mike!

Final Super Tuesday Delegate Count

This just in…

Nearly complete returns from Super Tuesday left McCain with 707 delegates, nearly 60 percent of the 1,191 needed to win the nomination at the national convention in St. Paul, Minn., this summer.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had 294, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee 195 and Texas Rep. Ron Paul 14.

A significant accomplishment for McCain.

Beyond Super Tuesday

Last night was a very impressive showing for Mike Huckabee. He showed what all of us knew – that he’s a more viable candidate than most in the media (which is largely dominated by NY and California pundits) would acknowledge and that he represents a large portion of the Republican party.

Having said that, the White House is still very much a long-shot. Mike now has 169 delegates compared to that of Romney (265) and McCain (559), according to CNN. So why is everyone impressed with his performance last night? Because he won 5 Southern states and while the delegate counts weren’t enormous, conventional wisdom says that the GOP must take the South in the general election to win. Mike, if nothing else, exposed the weaknesses that McCain has down there. Romney, who won a smattering of states including Massachusetts and Utah, didn’t appear to have a solid base in any part of the country.

So what’s next? Well, there are about six more primaries in the next week, and Mike shows no signs of slowing down (see his comments below). But towards what goal is he really running? The nomination? The VP nomination? Or perhaps something else. Neither the nomination or the VP nomination are entirely out of his grasp, but neither are very plausible. For all of the speculation about Mike on the VP ticket, it’s become clear that McCain will need someone who is viewed as both a social and economic conservative (Jack Kemp?) and unfortunately Thompson’s earlier attacks on Huckabee’s tax record have stuck. Most likely Mike is running to do what Reagan did in ’76 – to ignite the populist, socially conservative wing of the party and make sure that they aren’t marginalized at the convention. And like Reagan in ’76, this race is probably the beginning of something bigger for Mike Huckabee.

 As for your humble blogger, I intend to keep posting until we have a nominee, although you might find that I slow down the frequency of these posts a bit and stick to the major news events. Feel free to subscribe to this blog via the link on the right to receive those posts via e-mail and be sure to check out Mike’s blog on MikeHuckabee.com.

Here are his comments from late last night…

We had a great night tonight and now it is time to get reorganized for the contests ahead.

We have upcoming votes in: WA, KS, and LA on Feb 9 and DC, MD and VA on Feb 12.

We will launch new online headquarters for MD, VA, DC, KS, LA, WA and WI tomorrow.  Emails will go out tomorrow morning to our supporters in each of these states detailing ways to help. 

If you live outside of these states but have friends and family that live there please encourage them to learn more about Gov. Huckabee by visiting our website.

A Very Good Night for Mike

Well, at just over midnight, it looks like Mike has won every state that he hoped to get except Missouri (which he barely lost to McCain). Not only did he win West Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia (his biggest win), and Arkansas, but earned delegates in a number of other states that weren’t winner-take-all. What’s next? Well, he’s not going anywhere but McCain certainly was the big winner tonight and Romney took some serious blows. We’ll see the final delegate count in the morning, and there will be time to postulate about what’s next for Mike tomorrow… for now, time for some sleep.