Huckabee Wins Kansas, Demonstrates Lingering Rift in Party

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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.

 

 

174 Responses to “Huckabee Wins Kansas, Demonstrates Lingering Rift in Party”

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Comment by Evelyn

To all Huckabee supporters, I have four things to say.

1) If you support the guy so much why haven’t you ever ponied up any money to his campaign. If he had one tenth of the support you’d like to think he has, he should be flush with money.

2) You want to know why he’s been able to do this well with no money? He’s the only one that recruits thousands of preachers and pastors to illegally campaign for him from the pulpit. Goodness. If another candidate had that much free advertising every week, they wouldn’t need any money either. He’s also got nut jobs posting garbage comments like “God will be mad with you if you vote for Mitt Romney.”

3) When he starts pulling in more than 10% of the non-Evangelical vote let me know. Until then, quit your delusional dream that somehow he’s going to win the nomination. FL-6% of the non-Evangelical vote CA-5% of the non-Evangelical vote Given that he can’t pull more than 10% outside of this group and can’t even win a majority of the Evangelical vote when competing against Mitt Romney (except in IA), how on earth do you think he can win the nomination? You’re largely out of Southern States.

4) You’re also delusional if you think you’re going to get a large number of Mitt supporters. You and your Huckster have shamelessly smeared him for months. We’ve read your posts (including all the bigoted ones). We’ve seen the cheap shots your guy has taken in the debates and the media. You think now we’re just going to run over and throw you our support? Dream on.

Now…it looks like another 900+ more delegates and perhaps you prove me wrong, but somehow I doubt it.

 
Comment by John

Huckabee hasn’t got a prayer, and he knows it. He’s just keeping on the campaign so he doesn’t look like he ran block for McCain, which he did. I saw another conservative comment on this thread that they are voting Obama. So are we (my wife and I). I disagree with him(Obama) on EVERY issue, but he is the only candidate that appears to have an ounce of character. It really makes Dubya could run again, as I’m sure he’d get more republican consolidation than McCain.

Maybe after after Obama has run the nation for four years and we see genocide in Iraq and Al Queda sets off a nuke somewhere in Europe, the country will be ready to consolidate around a candidate who has a clue, and character.

Gingrich 2012

 
Comment by DJ

GO HUCK GO!!!!
It’s funny reading all the anti. Huckabee junk. Snown balls chance and all stuff. You all sound like the big networks…its working with you repeating all the hype and lies. But it want stop the Huckaboom

 
Comment by Chubs

Since Romney pulled out at the right time and place with grace, Mike had to decide what he would do.

Mike has chosen to push on knowing that he has no chance and claims “he is not a quitter” which is another attack at Romney.

Mike also has made comments that “the two civil campaigns in the race are the ones still standing”. Mike did not run a civil campaign against Romney and will not get all of Romney’s supporters.

Huckabee continues to attack Romney even after Romney is out of the race. Romney people should not support this deuche bag.

I think it is time to Chuck the Huck and move on with what we got.

MITT 2012, I WILL BE THERE!!!

 
Comment by Kim

I am a Kansas Republican. I work in education and am quite the minority. I was shocked when Friday, in our Break Room, the topic turned to politics. I was not only NOT the only one voting Huckabee, but confirmed Dems that I knew voting for Mike and others who have flat out refused to vote in past elections were calmly sitting and filling out voter registrations so they COULD vote Huckabee. More so than that, when we started talking about WHY…. You could have knocked me overwith a feather. Dems saying that Hillary’s health care was too much like Canada’s and anyone can see how that doesn’t work. Saying that at least Huckabee has a plan to move us forward and be proactive. People who love the “fair tax” who are not Republicans. Maybe others don’t “get it” We aren’t voting for his pro-life stance. In fact some are working hard to get past it. The point is we get past it because he is fresh and visionary and can bring about real change. We know about McCain and his midnight tries to get legislation passed we didn’t want and wouldn’t vote for. we want someone we can trust. Stop yelling at us for slowing things down and stop saying it is all because we are evangelical. Kansas is more moderate than you think. We vote the man (or woman). Just look at our Governor! Take a second look at Huckabee. Get past your own preconceptions and prejudices about Kansas. Maybe we are smarter than you think.

 
Comment by Kenneth Clifton

The Kansas win will help Huckabee in Louisiana and Washington. It will also help him in Virginia. Wins in many of these will help him Texas in the future. Also, Huckabee won this state in SPITE of Dole’s approval of McCain. Conservatives vote their faith, not what moderate politicians tell them to do…a clue to why McCain would lose in November (his states are BLUE states).

 
Comment by Evelyn

Let’s face it, folks: the CPAC doesn’t represent the majority of Republican voters any more. It does represent the “core” of the Conservative wing of our Party, but that is no longer core of the Party as a whole.

It’s pleasant to look back to the good ol’ days when the CPAC was the heart and soul of the GOP, but today’s reality is different from that fuzzy, happy dream. A majority of Republican voters and caucus-goers are getting turned off by the collection of positions held by the CPAC, as is being demonstrated by McCain’s large lead in delegates despite the hatred that the core Conservatives have for him.

We have to accept reality: to more and more Republican voters, the CPAC and its adherents are looking less and less like the central engine of our Party, and more and more like a bunch of unbending ideologues who would be perfectly happy to destroy our GOP and the USA along with it, if they can’t get 100 percent of what they stand for.

We have to bend, or we will break. We have to change with the times, or else we’ll be relegated to the dustbin of history. We can still adhere to our basic values, but we have start thinking and behaving like adults and realize that maybe getting 60% of our preferences is better than zero percent.

It’s idiotic to completely dismiss someone as “Liberal” who is somewhat to the left of the image we have of Ronald Reagan but miles to the right of Hillary Clinton. Maybe that person is 60% or 75% Conservative, but that’s not enough for many “core” Republicans these days. I dare say that even Ronald Reagan himself (the real Reagan, not the idealized icon of our dreams) would be rejected by many as “Liberal” nowadays. After all, he was practical, he sometimes compromised with Democrats, and he even raised a few taxes.

I think that we will continue to destroy our Party if we continue focus on the ways in which McCain and Huckabee each deviate from The Perfect Conservative Ideal and then rip them and each other to shreds over these imperfections. Let’s instead try to find common Conservative ground and ways to unite around one or both of these men, and let’s learn to be mature enough to settle for 60% of what we want instead of childishly demanding 100% or nothing.

Otherwise, we will not be able to stop or even slow down the Democratic floodwaters for the next four or eight years.

 
Comment by Ranger-12

I have been looking at the number of republicans vice democrats who have been voting in all the dog and pony shows of late the democrats out number the republicans by a great number Is this because there is less republicans then democrats or is it that the republicans just don’t get out and vote?

All this hype with the voting and the dog and pony shows don’t mean anything what is going to count is who name come out of the convention as top dog. Then it will almost be over with except for the cheating on the votes and who ever tell the biggest lie to get elected.

 
Comment by rockinjoe

Might as well vote for Mickey Mouse since none of the candidates have a true direction for the country to pursue.

The people who are running for office claim to have years and sometimes decades of experience yet they still do not have a real plan, vision, or objective in order to run the country. How much on the job training does a person need to have an understanding of the countries problems? Yet, they still waffle and tell people what they want to hear to attempt to be in office. A true and realistic leader will provide a solid plan and have confidence in his or her decisions that the plan will work. Yet none provide such a plan in order for the country to go into a certain direction.

 
Comment by Gayle

Don’t give up Mike! We need you to carry the Banner. John McCain is a fine man BUT you are the person this party needs right now. I live in AR and I see the things that were accomplished by your administration.

The pundits can’t seem to make up their mind as whether you are too conserative or too liberal. - They just know that there is substance there - We know you can win and to GOD Be The Glory.

 

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