Huckabee's Chances

Now that Romney's out, what are Huckabee's chances of slowing McCain down? No chance in the long run, but pretty good in the short term.

Many of the upcoming states should be friendly to Huckabee. Of the February 9 states, Louisiana is Deep South and next door to Arkansas. Kansas, home of the creationist movement, should also like him. He'll get whipped in Washington State, but he still can win two out of three on Saturday. That won't take much of a bite out of McCain's delegate lead, but the message of the day will be "it's not over" in big letters.

Three days later, in the Potomac primary, Huckabee will do badly in DC and Maryland, but he should do well in Virginia, which is winner-take-all and has more delegates than Maryland and DC put together. McCain is strongest in the DC suburbs, but rural Virginia really doesn't like him. If McCain wins Virginia, the race will be over. If Huckabee wins it, McCain will look very, very wounded.

After that comes Wisconsin. Definitely not Huckabee country, but it's just one state, and won't undo the effect of Louisiana, Kansas and Virginia. And then there's nothing until Texas (where Huckabee should do OK) and Ohio (where he won't).

If Huckabee survives February 12, March 4 may be his last gasp, but that's good enough for me. We'll have another month of conservatives hurling mud at "St. John", trying to gather around a candidate, splitting the Republican party, and forcing McCain to keep pandering to the right wing.