The former Arkansas Governor vows to stay in the race.
And while it may be mathematically impossible to see how it could play out right now, I know this: Right now, nobody has the 1,191 delegates. And, therefore, it would be a little premature to quit until the game has actually come to a conclusion.
And I’ll also remind everybody that it was the Republican National Committee who created the rules and the process and said, “Here’s what it takes to be the nominee.” Nobody’s made it to that point yet.
And so, you know, I’ve not been one who believes that you leave the field because it’s gotten difficult. You stay, and you keep playing until the last second of the clock has sounded.
I could make a wisecrack but someone may accuse me of anti-Huckabee bias. The numbers say Huckabee is all but mathamatically eliminated at this point.
Dr. Taylor at Poliblog writes–
Further, at this point, barring an actual miracle, Huckabee isn’t going to win the nomination, so all he can accomplish by staying in is the draining of McCain’s resources (that could be used to start the general election campaign) and the painting of McCain as a weak candidate.
Assuming that what Huckabee wants in November is a GOP victory, I am vexed by his behavior at this stage of the game.
Any theories?
Besides being politically thick headed? I’ll leave it to Wizbang readers to comment.
Update- CNN reports–
Mike Huckabee vowed to stay in the race despite losing three more primaries Tuesday night, pledging to give voters in the coming primaries “a solid, conservative, absolute pro-life candidate” as an alternative to frontrunner John McCain.
The absolute pro-life candidate would appear to be McCain. He gets a ZERO rating from NARAL. So answer me this- Why is Huckabee running again?
Hat tip- Professor Bainbridge
2nd Update- Ed at Captain’s Quarters writes in regards to Huckabee-
In fact, even if he had a chance to win the rest of the states, it still couldn’t keep McCain from winning the nomination. Huckabee said last night that his strategy is to get to the convention with the nomination still open, and hope to win an open convention. Since the rest of the states allocate delegates proportionally, the mathematics are all but impossible.
We now have 1,049 delegates left to win, and McCain needs only 380 more to clinch the nomination. Huckabee would have to win 670 of the delegates left in the primaries in order to block McCain. That means Huckabee would have to win more than 65% of the vote in every single state left to contest, while McCain would have to take less than 35% of the vote in every single state.
And that’s just to force an open convention, not to win the nomination. Huckabee hasn’t won more than 45% in any state, and he didn’t get to 45% in Virginia last night, either.
Again, why is Huckabee staying in the race? He may have the ultimate case of MES.
3rd update- James Joyner at OTB writes–
The only good news, really, is that having an opponent at least keeps McCain semi-relevant the next few months. As it is, the exciting race between Obama and Clinton is sucking most of the oxygen from the room.
Does one really think if the Republican race were to stop right now, voters would forget who the nominee is?
A couple of other random thoughts-
*- If Obama is elected President this year, I expect Hillary Clinton not to run for re-election to the Senate in 2012. The Senate was a prop for her White House bid. Once that is foiled, I think she will have little interest in the Senate.
*- Is McCain getting the GOP nomination comparable to Bob Dole in 1996? A Poliblog commenter made note of it. I been thinking the same thing for at least a few weeks.
