The Huckabee Campaign is getting happier by the day. What was already an upbeat, and playful campaign—a reflection of its good-humored candidate and relatively young and small staff—has become more so after a solid performance in Saturday’s primaries. Campaign staffers went out drinking in Washington, DC’s Adams Morgan neighborhood Saturday night to celebrate a thorough, 30 point win in Kansas and a narrow, unexpected victory in Louisiana, which Huckabee referred to as “shocking” at a press conference on Sunday. Though they’re not letting it go to their heads. There is still very much a nothing to lose attitude about the campaign as they’ve decided to just let this thing ride out and see what happens. Huckabee started the week with the mindset that victory is defined as how long he is able to keep McCain from getting the 1,191 delegates needed for the nomination, and that thinking hasn’t changed after wrapping up a great week that included his first wins since Iowa, adding 200 delegates to his count.
The campaign loves its underdog status. Still, Huckabee and McCain, who appear to have forged a genuinely close relationship over the last year, have pretty much refrained from going at each other. Huckabee has vowed not to engage in any serious attacks on McCain, saying he’ll to continue focusing on defining himself and nurturing his growing insurgency. Time will tell if McCain takes the offensive against Huckabee, a move that would almost admit that he’s a threat.
Increasing calls from Republican leaders for Huckabee to drop out have only served to embolden the campaign’s resolve to stay in. Asked on Sunday about Karl Rove’s recent request for him to clear the GOP field, Huckabee said, “The point is, Karl is a supporter of John McCain. I’ve not had my supporters tell me to get out of the race. The fact that the opposing team has their cheerleaders and band blowing songs against me, hardly motivates me to quit. It only motivates me to play harder. So if they think that what they’re doing is getting a chorus of voices that will make me say ‘OK, it’s time to leave,’ they don’t know me very well.”
Huckabee spent Sunday morning as a guest on NBC’s Meet the Press and CBS’s Face the Nation. Then he flew to Lynchburg, Virginia where he got a warm, big religious right welcome at Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church. We’re now in Richmond, where he’ll headquarter his watch party for Tuesday’s Potomac Primaries. Even if he doesn’t do well in Virginia, Maryland, and DC, don’t expect Huckabee to get out anytime soon, with the delegate-heavy Texas primary looming on March 4.
UPDATE: On Sunday afternoon, Huckabee Campaign chairman Ed Rollins called an impromptu meeting in his Richmond hotel room to tell reporters that the campaign intends to challenge the final results for the Washington State Republican precinct caucuses. Late Saturday night, with 87 percent of the vote in, and McCain leading Huckabee by just 242 votes, Washington State Party Chair Luke Esser called the race for McCain and suspended the vote count, with about 1,500 ballots still to be counted. Rollins said the campaign’s lawyers, after repeated attempts, finally contacted Esser on Sunday afternoon and asked him which Washington precincts were yet to be counted. Esser, according to Rollins, said he didn’t know, and then refused to let them be present while the votes were counted. “He said how dare Mike Huckabee challenge us… then he hung up on our lawyer,” said Rollins. “This is an absurd process,” he continued. “We obviously had great momentum yesterday with a big victory in Kansas and a big victory in Louisiana. I’m not accusing the McCain campaign of anything; I’m just accusing the state party chairman of using very bad judgment. We’re going to fully pursue this legally.” Rollins said the campaign is prepared to go to court and to take the case all the way to the Republican National Convention in September. The Huckabee insurgency continues.
