Friday, February 8, 2008

A Huckabee Supporter Talks About Reality

Now that my electricity is back on I can type this post:).

The next 5 days for Huckabee and his supporters shall be crucial. I said last week that for Huckabee to be viewed as viable he had to win 5 of the 7 states that we were active in for Super Tuesday. Also that he had to either win Tenn or Missouri. Well he did that. That was significant and important. Today Mitt Romney dropped out and it is indeed a two man race. I think Huck deserves his shot.

Now the hard facts.

As I stated on here the so so close loss to McCain in Missouri hurt. What makes it bad was how well McCain did in California. I never anticipated he would get almost all the delegates from there. Here is where we stand

You need 1,191 to win

McCain right now is at 714 or around that.
Romney is at 286
Huckabee is at 181
Paul is at 16

This is the schedule for this upcoming 5 days
The next few days ending with Tuesday.
Saturday
Louisiana- 47 delegates(Mike must get 50 percent plus 1)
Kansas 39
Washington-18 of 40

Tuesday
VA-63(Winner take all)
DC-19
Maryland-37

That is a total of 223 delegates that will be decided.

In order for Mike Huckabee to be considered a real viable contender he must do well on Saturday and do a upset in VA. I think that is just the facts.

Let us look at what comes up this month:
2-16-08Guam (9, CC)

2-19-08Wisconsin (40, WTAP)

2-23-08American Samoa (9, CC)

2-24-08Puerto Rico (23, CC)

3-08Northern Marianas (9, CC)

Those American Non States while often ignored become pivotal. I have actually taken a interest in them and researched them. Those I feel for various reasons they are a pretty safe bet for McCain. That is 50 if you add them up. The Virgin Islands goes later .

We then have the states that compromise the biggies in April

3-4-08
Ohio (88, WTAP)
Rhode Island (20, PP);
Texas (140, WTAP/PP);
Vermont (17, WTAP)

Now one problem we are facing is that states that should be friendly to us occur much later in the primary season. For instance after VA it would be great if we could have states like North Carolina, and Indiana, and Idaho, and Nebraska and such. However we don't. Also there is something being missed. That is the Florida and Michigan delegations that are CURRENTLY sanctioned. Right now they have just half of their delegates because they moved their primaries up. Well that is not set in stone. If they get on the floor and approved McCain gets by himself around 45 more delegates.

Huckabee must do very well on Saturday and do an upset in VA to have any possibilty of the being the nominee. If not McCain pretty much wins by just showing up and not having to do much. That is because there are precious few winner take off states at this stage. Even Texas which Huckabee supporters think we have a sho to taking is not winner take all.

However there is another glaring problem. That is Mitt Romney who no doubt plans to run in four years will get his delegates to go McCain. There is no doubt in my mind that he could get the Utah, Massachusetts, and Michigan delegation to do that at the very least. McCain is now at the magic number to win. Period and no funny doing of the math changes that.

Now if Mike does well and pulls the upset in VA there are valid reasons to go on and I shall be with him. However if that does not happen ,I shall have to do some soul searching where I stand on Wednesday morning.

I will probally start the transition to being a Mccain supporter. I also feel that Mike Huckabee will then entertain the possibility of dropping out.

I will be working for Mike this Saturday so I am not giving up. However our backs are against the wall. This all seems so unfair since our backs were against the wall just last week and we proved the pundits wrong.

It does seem our opponents drop out just a primary too late. Whether it is Thompson in SC, Rudy in Florida, or Romney on Super Tuesday. It would have been very beneficial for us if Thompson had dropped out after Iowa, Rudy dropped out before Florida, and Romney dropped out after Florida. Sadly though it did not happen. All of which leads us to to today and this week.

Speaking for myself ,I will evaluate my stance and position on again on Wednesday morning. Much will depend if I can decipher what kind of effort Huckabee will do. For instance having this go on for a while at a low cost McCain might be beneficial. It also helps Mike for something maybe 4 years down the road but does not hurt the party. The key will be that he does not become "Ron Paulish".

The theme will be Keeping the primary going is beneficial to Republicans, not harmful. The "need to stay in the media spotlight" as it were. It would become apparent that McCain would not be threatened. It gets him to do groundwork at a very low cost(trust me if we don't win VA we shall be on fumes money wise) and perhaps make his future possible VP(Huckabee) more popular as he jazzes up segments of the party we need to win.

In fact if Huckabee does go on and the McCain camp does not issue a thousand press releases about Huckabee needs to withdraw for the good of the party , then I suspect something like that is going on behind the scenes.

And remember. Mitt Romney if need be "for the good of the party" will throw his delegates to McCain. In other words after VA (if McCain wins it) Romney (who wants to run 4 years later) clinches it for McCain and it is over. Let me say I would hate to see Romney be the VP nominee as a part of that deal. So there are risks.

But right now there are a lot of unknowns. The key is to work hard so we can move on past Tuesday. But make no doubt. An upset in VA is a must.

3 comments:

Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs said...

Good post, but I would encourage you to keep faith... Mitt Romney probably doesn't have as much control over his supporters as you would think. A Romney delegate may very easily have been supporting Romney because he wasn't McCain or Rudy (too liberal) and Thompson or Huckabee couldn't win. If given the choice (and they will at a brokered convention), I think a lot of them will go to Huckabee.

Don't forget Governor Huckabee's ability to woo a crowd his way. Give him a chance to speak to convention delegates and we'll stand a darn good shot at pulling this off.

We just have to do everything in our power to make this a brokered convention.

(Indications are that Ron Paul's delegates may end up coming our way too)

-Kevin

www.ktracy.com

Anonymous said...

Hey, LSU ended up on top. And I swear somewhere you originally showed some doubt, however, I can't find the post to quote from.

And as Christians, we know that goodness will prevail over evil eventually, however, the timetable for same is not always the one we are asking for. Nonetheless, we should never give up "hope" that that time is NOW. There are different scenarios that could take place regarding this election process. And right when you think you know each and every one, a new possibility may very well be just around the corner. (I mean, Mitt left, right? - thank God! - No one much saw that coming.)

St. Michael the Archangel, Holy Innocents, pray for Mike Huckabee and his team.

Go, Mike, Go!

Silent Souls for Huckabee

James H said...

Don't worry guys I am keeping the faithj. I went to a sign wave this morning. Even On Tuesdai if things do not go well more than likely I am in till Wisconsin

I guess I am trying to point our reality to Huckabee supporters about the importance of the next 5 days. I was on the major forum for Huckabee folks yesterday and there is a tad of fantasy land going on. A few are mentioning what is at stake the next few days and I think we need to know how hard we must work.

OH ans I agree with Prayer. I am still praying hard and it is not so muc that I have doubt but we need to really win dome the next few days. IT is sort of Like Super Tuesday. We can do it but much more to the point we have to