Why Huckabee's Kansas Win Matters
Mike Huckabee's overpowering win in the Kansas caucuses equips him with a useful weapon to beat back calls for his immediate departure from the Republican race, but it won't do anything to reverse John McCain's overall inevitability.
Trouncing McCain in lightly-attended caucuses in a state where conservative Christians hold disproportionate sway simply represents a continuation of the pattern that has defined this G.O.P. race. Huckabee does exceedingly well in states like Kansas and Iowa and across the South, but remains incapable of making inroads in the rest of the country. With McCain only about 450 delegates shy of the Republican nomination, there are simply too many non-Southern, non-Christian conservative-dominated states left for Huckabee—or anyone else—to catch him.
The real value of today's result for Huckabee is the boost it should give his vice-presidential prospects. With such a lopsided win—60 to 24 percent was the final count, with Ron Paul at 11 percent—Huckabee has made yet another powerful statement about the devoted support he has been able to attract from religious conservatives. Huckabee has little money and the media has declared the race all but over, and yet a big chunk of the Christian right is still flocking to the former Arkansas governor.
The more Huckabee replicates his Kansas showing in the weeks ahead, the easier it would be for McCain—who plainly thinks highly of Huckabee—to tap him for the Number Two slot, since McCain could convincingly argue that Huckabee's presence on the ticket would be critical to motivating religious conservatives. That could help overcome objections from some vocal members of the conservative establishment (like Rush Limbaugh, for instance), who consider Huckabee unacceptable because of his economic populism.
Yeah, the most logical choice for McCain is Huckabee as his running mate, but the political landscape can change very quickly.
It just seems like yesterday Rudy and Hillary would be the nominees. Hillary may very well be the Democratic nominee but it's not a certainty.
The Kenneth Copeland story could be a train wreck in the making, and derail the McCain-Huckabee political partnership. Copeland, a televangelist, has a lavish lifestyle and is currently being investigated by Senator Charles Grassley. Huckabee failed to exercise wise judgment and appeared on Copeland's television program in the fall of 2007. Oddly enough, the topic of conversation was integrity. How could Huckabee be so dumb? At least Huckabee didn't spend a week at Copeland's 18,000 square-foot mansion. I guess he stayed one night at the big estate.
From my understanding, Copeland has contributed around $30,000 to the Huckabee campaign, minus the fancy digs for an overnight stay. That's worth some loot there. Sure beats Motel 6.
I would think Senator Charles Grassley might receive a call from McCain to drop the televangelists' investigations, because Copeland is on Grassley's list.
Reverend Richard Roberts had a mighty big fall, and the possibility that other prominent and rich televangelists could have a similar fate is real. Fundamentalists might not be too pleased, and that's Huckabee's base.
Morever, what's interesting is that only a few of the televangelists are cooperating with Grassley. With that twist to the investigations Grassley would look like like a wimp, if he dropped the investigations due to a little heat from the McCain camp. The word wimp and Grassley seldom appear in the same sentence. Grassley has always been a take-charge type of guy and he's a powerful guy in the Republican Party.
If Huckabee's out, that's a big problem for McCain.
Huckabee "remains incapable of making inroads in the rest of the country." I don't understand how that statement is consistent with his close second place showing in (non-southern, not terribly religious) Washington state.
Washington was small numbers...But really there are states with far less evangelical strength - more similar to New Hampshire. The point is that the numbers do not humor Huckabee's nomination hopes. But the momentum surely does raise the VP chances. Personally, I'd rather the VP choice was someone not connected to the Religious Right. Like why would Huckabee speak twice at the services of the Christian-Zionist Hagee, for instance? Now he is scarey. I believe if McCain can do what he would rather, it would not be Huckabee on the ticket. McCain is not comfortable showing off the faith explicitly. He'd probably like Colin Powell. He'd probably like Fred Thompson or Jack Kemp or Gov Crist of Florida or Gov Pawlenty of Minn. Or Giuliani, he'd probably like. Heck he'd probably do Gov Arnie if he could get around the native-born rule as well as trying to please the conservative right wing. Last, I hope he just chooses someone for reasons of virtue and integrity, end of story.