Huckabee Wins Kansas, Demonstrates Lingering Rift in Party
Mike Huckabee, shown here speaking to students Saturday at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md., won the Kansas caucuses. (AP Photo)
Mike Huckabee won the Kansas Republican caucuses Saturday, demonstrating the lingering rift in the party after rival John McCain was minted the clear front-runner Super Tuesday.
Kansas was the first of four states to hold contests for both parties Saturday. Final results showed Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, with 60 percent, compared to 24 percent for McCain, the Arizona senator. Texas Congressman Ron Paul captured 11 percent of the more than 18,000 Republicans voting.
Huckabee captured all 36 of the delegates to the Republican National Convention from Kansas, according to Associated Press tallies. Another three delegates are party leaders who attend the convention no matter whom they support, and two of them have endorsed McCain.
Huckabee called it a “big win,” saying, “I think it shows that while people in Washington and insiders continue to maybe gravitate toward the senator’s campaign, people in America are gravitating toward our campaign and realizing there is a choice … And that’s what we’ve said all along; that this race is far from being over.”
Both McCain and Huckabee were wooing conservatives in the state Friday. Huckabee had the support of prominent anti-abortion activists, while McCain had the backing from conservative Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. But McCain still is trying to reach out to conservatives, many of whom are skeptical of him for taking moderate positions on campaign finance, taxes and immigration. The Kansas caucuses could signal the difficulty of the road ahead for McCain in marshaling conservative enthusiasm for his campaign in the general election, if he is the nominee.
“This is a state that both candidates competed in. This shows that Washington pundits don’t pick the nominee. The folks in the states and outside the Beltway pick the nominee. So not so fast, we still have a long way to go until the nominee is picked, with 20-plus states left,” Huckabee campaign manager Chip Saltsman said.
Huckabee pledged Saturday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., that he would be staying in the race, even though Mitt Romney’s exit from the race earlier in the week made McCain the virtual heir to the GOP nomination.
“It sends a pretty significant signal to John McCain that he’s got a lot of work to do to get significant factions of the Republican Party solidly behind him,” said Kris Kobach, the Kansas Republican Party chairman.
Huckabee will have a lot farther to go to catch McCain, though. The Arizona senator began the day with 719 delegates.
Huckabee had 198, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 14. It takes 1,191 to win the nomination.
McCain’s camp had already begun downplaying Kansas ahead of time. Caucuses are not their strength, and Brownback even said he didn’t expect a win in Kansas for McCain.
“Our campaign fully expected to fall short in the Kansas caucus. John McCain is the presumptive nominee in this race, our path forward is unchanged by today’s results, and our focus remains the same: uniting the Republican party to defeat Democrats in 2008,” McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said in a statement.
Seventy-four delegates were at stake for the GOP in Saturday’s contests in Kansas, Louisiana and Washington. McCain’s campaign has said the earliest the Arizona senator could seal the nomination with the needed delegates is the March 4 primary.
Some Kansas Republicans thought their caucuses would provide an indication of whether conservatives grudgingly accepted McCain as the GOP candidate or whether they still hoped to nominate someone else despite the long odds.
FOX News’ Serafin Gomez and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
looks like a dirty deal, huh Huck, but just remember one thing, what goes around comes around
About the FairTax:
1) yes, all the illegal cash-based businesses start paying taxes, because drug dealers, strippers, prostitutes, and cash contractors have to pay for housing, groceries, cars, etc. too.
2) as for the wealthy not spending a large portion of their income while the middle class spends nearly all of it, all things are relative. The wealthy tend to buy new houses more often, new cars more often, new boats, etc. They aren’t living in trailer parks. Yes, middle class spends a higher percentage of their income -on necesseties-, and possibly in general, but the rich can spend it with the best of them. Also remember that the middle class tends to buy a lot more used stuff, especially big-ticket items like homes and cars which are EXEMPT from FairTax.
Let me say that again so it sinks in: FairTax applies to NEW goods and services ONLY. It does NOT apply to used cars, used houses, used boats, used goods, stuff you bought on E-Bay or at the local garage sale.
Now - think about a middle-class lifestyle, and consider that of the wealthy, and I think you’ll find that a large portion of what them middle-class spends is, or could be, on stuff that isn’t new and/or things that they’re not the first owner of. Remember, if they didn’t build that house, they don’t pay FairTax when they buy it from the previous owner. Incidentally, this could be a huge boost for the secondary housing market, which is the segment of the total housing market that is suffereing the worst right now.
3) comparing FairTax to Florida, or any other state, isn’t exactly reasonable, as the implementations are vastly different.
4) the Prebate feature of FairTax is unique versus any other proposed or in-practice consumption-based tax plan, and functions as the neutralizer of taxes on necessities.
5) when you consider that your take-home income, with the Prebate included, will go up 38-45% at the same time as prices go up 30% with the tax applied, we’re all money ahead in the end, and with more money to spend, people will spend it and that activity is key in strengthening the economy.
6) FairTax has a huge effect on illegal immigration, making it less attractive to come here illegally to work for low wages that are insufficient to provide food and shelter. Those that employ illegals will find it immediately less cost effective to do so.
There a lot of good things in this plan, so it’s worth your time to read all the information carefully, and not just gloss over it in a few minutes. Grow your attention span to beyond that of a common housefly and try to read it comprehensively.
http://www.FairTax.org
I find it disturbing how grown adults don’t take the election process seriously. The lack of turn out indicates to me that far too few people care about their country and its future.
The write-in votes, and votes cast for candidates that have withdrawn, I view as irresponsible and stupid. Regardless of exit polls, there is no way to know where votes would have gone if the only possible choices were candidates that were still in the race. Sure, some of these are absentee ballots cast before a candidate dropped out, but a lot of them were cast in person at the voting booth. If someone is so foolish as to vote for a candidate that has withdrawn, what does that indicate about their level of understanding of the issues facing our nation?
For those that think such votes are sending some sort of message, forget it. The only effect you may have is corrupting the distribution of delegates in close contests. In Kansas for instance, it’s not enough to change the outcome, however in states like Washington and Louisiana, there are clearly enough votes to non-candidates to potentially change the result, especially in Washington, where Romney got 16% of the votes in a contest with less than 5% separating the other three candidates. One might even argue that had all the garbage votes in LA gone to Huckabee he might have gotten over the 50% threshold to capture the delegates, and conversely had a substantial portion gone to McCain it might have put him ahead.
For those that blow off their primary/caucus because their favored candidate is either way ahead or way behind in delegate counts such that your vote no longer matters, you’re missing the point. Get your arse off the sofa and vote. Every vote for an active candidate matters because collectively they speak to your present and future leadership in terms they can understand. Collectively they provide prioritization and direction on important issues. Collectively they raise the level of discussion, explore new ideas, and unite us as a nation. But only when cast in great volume, because in small numbers, insufficient to be believed as reasonably representative of the larger group/state/district/nation/party/whatever they must be disregarded and ignored.
When a majority speaks, they are heard, but when a majority says nothing, nothing is heard. If you don’t speak to your leadership as a nation, you leave your leadership with little choice but to take a wild guess. Does that sound like a responsible way to govern?
Finally, to those that just can’t be bothered…remember, if you don’t vote, you can’t gripe; if you’re not part of the solution then you are certainly part of the problem.
I say split the party. This is crap that we have only McLame and Huckleberry for our candidates. Send a message to them saying not only is Washington Broken, so is the GOP. If Huckleberry thinks he is going to be VP, he is truly delusional and still can’t do math. It is his choice and right to still run, but what is he running to or for? Preacher of the Year because it is not for President of the United States.
I would be upset if Mitt turned our votes for him over to either McLame or Huckleberry. More so if he gave it to Huckleberry. Huckleberry hates and tries to cover it up with his so called Christianity. I trust a man of faith, but a liar that preaches hate, I don’t trust.
We know why McLame hates he is old and an ex-POW.
I am still writing in Mitt Romney.