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February 13, 2008
What's Up With Huckabee?
According to some calculations, he now needs 950 delegates to reach the required 1,191. There are only about 774 delegates left to win, meaning Mike Huckabee would need to win approximately 123% of the remaining contests to secure the nomination.
I didn't major in math or miracles, but something tells me he's not going to win this thing. The strange thing is, he seems to realize it as well.
The nomination is not secured until somebody has 1,191 delegates,” Mike Huckabee said last night in Little Rock after losing primary battles to John McCain in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. “That has not yet happened. . . and if there are these calls to say, ‘Let’s just call it off,’ that’s a disservice to the people in Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania and North Carolina and Nebraska and other states and territories who have yet to have the opportunity to vote. So we march on.”Staying in the race for a time does help raise Huckabee's stature in the party, but as York mentions in the article, from this point on those returns are going to diminish if he keeps beating the presumptive nominee and keeping him from obtaining the required number of delegates.That’s what Huckabee says in public. But inside the Huckabee camp these days, there is a distinct sense of pragmatism about the campaign’s prospects. The time is coming — probably just after the March 4 primary in Texas — when Huckabee, if he cannot produce any more victories, will leave the Republican presidential race.
So why stay in at this point, when more than ever, the party needs time to unify behind a nominee who hasn't yet won the full support of the base? Is it just about beating Romney's delegate count?
And on the Democratic side...Obama's campaign is now starting to suggest what seemed unthinkable when this election season started.
Posted by slublog at February 13, 2008 07:21 AM
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Comments
I ran my own numbers and reallocated the caucus states that didn't actually bind national delegates to candidates yet, and while it isn't quite impossible for Huckabee to either win or force a brokered convention (which McCain would simply take after a bit of horse-trading), it's not at all likely. My back-of-the-envelope math has McCain up 946-254, with 1,019 plus 145 "hard-pledged" to Romeny left to get.
Posted by: steveegg at February 13, 2008 11:06 AM
At least Hillary is cleaning house in her campaign staff when the momentum shifteed. Fred just kind of rolled over like a dead whale bobbing lazily in the surf.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at February 13, 2008 10:01 PM
steveegg, what is the chance of any of Romney's delegates going to the "Jesus is Satan's brother" guy? At least McCain beat Romney fair and square.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at February 13, 2008 10:04 PM