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.