Huckabee scores upset, easily wins Kansas caucuses

February 9, 2008

It looks like Bob Dole’s support didn’t do much for the GOP frontrunner.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will win the Kansas Republican caucuses, CNN projects.

With 76 percent of precincts reporting, Huckabee had 62 percent of the vote, compared with 22 percent for Arizona Sen. John McCain and 11 percent for Texas. Rep. Ron Paul. Kansas has 36 delegates at stake Saturday.

Saturday’s Republican contests in Kansas, Louisiana and Washington could predict whether the party will line up behind McCain as their candidate or provide Huckabee with an opportunity to zing the presumptive nominee.

“I know the pundits, and I know what they say: The math doesn’t work out,” Huckabee said Saturday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. “Well, I didn’t major in math, I majored in miracles. And I still believe in those, too.”

John McCain is the presumptive nominee, Huckabee is barely campaigning, and Kansas still went for the underdog? By a nearly 3-to-1 margin?

McCain still has some work to do.

The question is still valid: “What’s the matter with Kansas?”

A McCain presidency is frightening. A Huckabee presidency is worse. Morbo presented a scary scenario this morning in his post here: “How we might get stuck with Huck.”

Come on, bickering Democrats! Nothing that you know, imagine, or will ever be told by the Republican Smear Machine about either Clinton or Obama could be as bad as McCain/Huckabee.

  • I doubt anyone thinks Huckabee is a serious contender. A vote for him is little more than a “none of the above” vote. It does, however, suggest that the Dixie Chicks aren’t the only ones who are “Not Ready to Make Nice” yet.

  • CB asks, “Kansas still went for the underdog? By a nearly 3-to-1 margin?”

    Clearly, the obvious answer is that when Dorothy and Toto came back from Oz, they brought with them a large group of recently-unemployed flying monkeys (the ancestors of Neoconservatives, by the way). Flying monkeys, it has been rumored, are quite similar to a theocratic pack of Constitution-denying hyenas. Their manners and ethics are quite similar, and they both smell very, very bad….

  • Well, I didn’t major in math, I majored in miracles

    I wonder, what are the degree requirements for miracle majors?

  • The question is still valid: “What’s the matter with Kansas?”

    From what I can tell, nothing. Kansas is one of those states where the reasonable people have been fleeing the Republican Party because the nutters are in charge of the Kansas GOP. If a party dominated by nutters holds a closed caucus, the nutters are going to win. McCain wins by pulling in independents and by having Romney and Huckster split the “anyone but McCain” vote. Kansas had neither, so McCain loses.

    Now, I doubt Huckster is going to pull off his “miracle” regardless of whether he majored in mathematics or not. But he could pick up enough support to force McCain to tap him as veep. And that scares me quite a bit.

  • While his views are anathema to me, Huckabee’s appeal is based on two things John McCain lacks: he is genuine and he can really shoot the shit.

  • Huckabee is anything but genuine. Have you seen him in different contexts? He panders as much as McCain does in his appearances on the Daily Show. They have no problem lying to people’s faces as long as it gets them votes.

  • I hate to be snarky, but I didn’t realize Bob Dole was still alive.

    The reason Huckabee is going to be a thorn in McCain’s side is that he brings in the evangelical votes that McCain needs – and does it in a way that someone like Brownback can’t. Brownback is from Kansas and endorsed McCain when he left the race, and look at the numbers. So what does McCain do – how does he keep Huckabee off the ticket and pick up voters that supported him?

    I almost can’t think of a better ticket to have fun with than McCain-Huckabee. I mean, can you picture the VP debates? There isn’t enough popcorn for that scenario.

    Here’s a question – is a presidential nominee required to have a VP on the ticket, and if not, is there a mechanism for picking one after the election?

  • So what happens if Huckabee can now consolidate the base (e.g. Focus on the Family…) and can get ~60% of the remaining delegates which will put McCain short of the 1191? In some ways that seems to be the kind of thing that Huckabee could consider that a “win” of sorts…not entirely sure this is completely over given the crazy race to date.

  • I wish that i had majored in miracles, that would have solved a lot of problems i’ve faced in life. A double minor in super-modeling and ninja would’ve been cool too.

  • McCain still has some work to do

    It’s this kind of smear-rhetoric (or smeartoric) that only confirms what a strong pro-Huck blog this has unfortunately become. “Some work?” It’s obvious that CB has clearly decided to toss reality to the wind and hop on board the Huckabee Express in order to run down the greatest presidential candidate since George Washington; if Washington had been a POW with a wicked sense of humor.

    And so I’ve decided that there can be no other course of action than to replace Mr. Carpetbagger with a more sane choice, who won’t allow his biased fidelity to Huckabee ruin an otherwise decent blog. Might I recommend Ben Domenech? While I always get a certain sense of deja vu whenever I read his material, nonetheless, he’s a high-quality blogger with that certain edge that this blog has been lacking for some time under CB’s tepid leadership. Plus, he’s not biased on McCain, but rather correctly understands that John really is “The Last Action Hero.” Don’t get me wrong, I still find Carpetbagger Report to be one of the finest blogs on the internet. I just think it’d be a much better idea to replace Carpetbagger with a fresh, new face to counter-balance the stale, biased material we’ve seen lately.

    So I decided to go ahead with it. Carpetbagger, pack your bags. I hate to do this to you, but you’ve over-stayed your welcome. Mr. Domenech will be by shortly to get your keys and passwords. Please don’t cause a scene and make this more awkward then it already is. You don’t have to go badly; just go.

    UPDATE: I was just informed by a reliable source that I have no idea what I’m talking about and I apologize.

  • Shalimar said:
    Too bad Republican voters don’t have Mittens to darn anymore. I miss him already.

    🙂 And ‘darn’ is the strongest word that clean-living guy would use. McCain takes off the gloves. Mitt loses his mittens.

    Steve said: Flying monkeys, it has been rumored, are quite similar to a theocratic pack of Constitution-denying hyenas.
    🙂 Thanks for clearing up my confusion, Steve. I’m just glad Elephants can’t fly.

    beep52 said:
    I wonder, what are the degree requirements for miracle majors?

    🙂 Excess gullibility?

    NonyNony said:McCain wins by pulling in independents and by having Romney and Huckster split the “anyone but McCain” vote. Kansas had neither, so McCain loses
    Good point. So are you saying Romeny was a Mitt-igating factor?

    Thanks for the groans, ladies and gentlemen. 🙂

  • The explanation seems pretty simple to me: McCain supporters figured the race was over and didn’t bother to show up. Thereby handing victory to Huckabee and his more ardent backers.

  • According to NYT, with 100% reporting, the final results are: Huckabee 60%, McCain 24%. Paul 11%. So McCain seems to have chipped off a couple percents off Huckabee, while Paul remained at the same level.

  • ***I’m just glad Elephants can’t fly.***

    Actually, Dale, they can. They just have a tendency to fly into the back end of aircraft carriers, fly “low-n-slow” over concentrated antiaircraft gun emplacements, and fly right on by their place of employment every time there’s something important that needs doing.

    Pretty much like the DoubleSpeak ‘frontrunner” who just got his posterior waxed by Huckabee in Munchkin Land….

  • I don’t know if its true or not but I heard that Rethugs were crashing the democratic caucases in Neb an Wash. They want so bad to run against Hillary they will do anything that is legal.

  • “Kansas is one of those states where the reasonable people have been fleeing the Republican Party because the nutters are in charge of the Kansas GOP. If a party dominated by nutters holds a closed caucus, the nutters are going to win. McCain wins by pulling in independents and by having Romney and Huckster split the “anyone but McCain” vote. Kansas had neither, so McCain loses.”

    George Bush won Kansas in 2004 by 25 points. It’s not the party…it’s the state.

  • Kansas is a sure sign McCain is in trouble. People who consider themselves “true” conservatives just can’t stand the man and Huck is the last man standing in the primaries they can support. The grassroots religious right is still saying “anyone but McCain.”

    It boils down to what will Huck do? Sticking it out to the convention, he could still win some states and grab delegates let loose by other ex-candidates, not necessarily making the race really competitive but giving McCain ulcers and cementing Huck’s place in the right wing power structure.

    If Huck goes over to the Dark Side and accepts a VP slot with McCain, will Huck’s follower’s still support him for selling out to Evil John? Will conservatives find the hybrid ticket acceptable? This sum of this equation is still unknown and Republicans are anything but unifying behind their “frontrunner.”

  • It may be that McCain supporters were convinced the race is decided, but only about 20,000 Republicans bothered to vote. Compare that to 37,000 for Dems last week.

  • Thinking about Bush/McCain, I ran across a quote by Robert Stone about looking back on the “60’s”:

    “Measuring ourselves against the masters of the present, we regret nothing except our failure to prevail.”

    Random image: McCain on a recumbent mountain bike yelling “Air Attack.”

  • Jim @22 talked about Republican caucus crashing. I’ve started to wonder if the average imbalance in primary/caucus turnout numbers (many to most of which are open) can be partially explained by this. Of course, it would also be partially explained by the fact that the Republicans didn’t/don’t have anything nearing an exciting candidate.

    Unfortunately, there’s no way to know…but i certainly have started to wonder, and i can see certain segments of the Republican base doing just that kind of thing.

  • Huckabee would be a lot easier for the Democrats to defeat in November. He has almost no appeal among Independents.

  • McCain still has some work to do.

    John “44” McCain is about to start cranking up the pressure on a lot of people, but especially on Hillary and Obama since they are easy ‘Targets’. With Romney recently dropping out, rumors have already started that Governor Haley Barbour may be the next Vice President. A McCain/Barbour team could really point out the weaknesses of the Democratic Party in many areas, e.g. Hurricane Katrina exposed the Democrat leaders of NO and Louisiana as being weak and incompetent, especially when their actions are compared to the actions of Mississippi’s Governor Haley Barbour.

    With all the time now left to prepare before the Presidential election, McCain will probably break all previous Landslide election records, in both the Popular Votes and Electoral Votes.

  • Recall that Kansas is the state where, whenever the fundies get a majority on the school board, they leap back to the 16th Century, their fundie Attorney General wanted to indict birch control clinics for child abuse for helping teenagers, etc.

    So why wouldn’t Loonieville for for Candidate Looney P. Tunes??

  • With all the time now left to prepare before the Presidential election, McCain will probably break all previous Landslide election records, in both the Popular Votes and Electoral Votes. — Seaberry, @31

    That’s exactly the kind of predictions that Ron Paul’s adherents were tossing around as recently as 6 weeks ago. May you be as prescient as they had been 🙂

  • “Majored in miracles”?? Is Jesus your campaign manager now, Mikey? Bet there’s a lot of elbowing among the prophets, as they jostle for the vice-presidency.

    Only Huckabee, and perhaps his Huckleberries, could frame his potential presidency as a miracle. It’d be more like a plague. His victory is merely a measure of how roundly McCain is detested in some quarters. Some say any president is going to have a tough time uniting the country, but for these two, it’d be a more daunting task than for most.

  • their fundie Attorney General wanted to indict birch control clinics for child abuse

    I’m sorry, Tom, I know this was just a typo, but I keep picturing the trees in the Wizard of Oz throwing apples at Dorothy and the Scarecrow. 🙂

  • Don’t look now, but Huck is leading in WA and LA. What if Huck sweeps, and Mittens decides to take one last shot at McCain, and throw his delegates to Huck? We could be looking at the cultural civil war fundies have been drooling over, and it will be a republican only affair.

  • TR—“Feel the Huckmentum?” What is that, some bizarre type of drug-induced bowel movement? It sound like an Ex-Lax commercial, for crying out loud!

  • Makes Obama/Hillary spats seem pale in comparison. I can’t imagine either side voting for Kucinich in large numbers in protest once one is the de fact nominee.

  • John McCain is losing ground.
    The people are starting to see that McCain is another George Bush.
    McCain has no chance in November, and the voters are looking to Huckabee to turn things around.

    George Vreeland Hill

    • Comments are closed.