Huckabee Challenges Washington Caucus Results
Sunday: Mike Huckabee is reflected in the window of his vehicle as he leaves a television appearance in Washington, D.C.
Mike Huckabee is challenging the results of the Washington state Republican caucuses, his campaign announced Sunday, after accusing the state party chairman of calling the election for John McCain before all the votes were counted.
The campaign will be pursuing a full investigation, including sending in lawyers to join those already on the scene in the state, officials told FOX News.
Washington State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser announced late Saturday that McCain had won the 2008 Republican caucuses in the state with 87.2 percent of precincts reporting. McCain had 25.5 percent over Huckabee’s 23.7 percent in that race.
Esser issued a statement congratulating McCain on a “hard-fought win,” and Huckabee on a “strong second-place finish.”
Ed Rollins, Huckabee campaign chairman, directly challenged Esser’s move, saying the count was incomplete because the other 12.8 percent of precincts could tip the scales since McCain was beating Huckabee by only a couple hundred votes.
“The chairman showed very bad judgment in stopping the voting last night when announcing John McCain had won, when there was less than a 200-vote margin between the two candidates,” Rollins told FOX News in an exclusive interview. “You never announce a vote, in my 40 years of politics, I have never know anybody to announce a vote count before the vote is counted.”
Rollins was quick to say that the campaign was not accusing the McCain camp of anything untoward, and the issue lies solely with Esser’s call. He added that campaign attorneys have attempted to contact Esser’s lawyers but had not yet received a return phone call.The final results came during the night after the race had been declared too close to call and Washington GOP election officials decided to call it a night. Esser said a final tally would not come until Monday.
Speaking in a television interview earlier in the day, the former Arkansas governor indicated that he wasn’t ready to give up on the Washington state results but did not discuss specifics.
“We’re looking at some legal issues. We’re not ready to concede that one,” Huckabee said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Washington state Republicans send 40 delegates to the national convention, this year being held in Minneapolis-St. Paul from Sept. 1-4. Like Louisiana, about half of the delegates are chosen by presidential primary, which will be held in Washington on Feb. 19. The remainder come from the caucus and convention process.
Despite the outcome in Washington, Huckabee had a good showing on Saturday, winning the Kansas Republican caucuses by a landslide and edging out McCain in the Louisiana GOP presidential primary.
Huckabee said even he was surprised by the results in Kansas, where he won all of the state’s 36 delegates to the convention, and Louisiana, where no delegates were awarded because no candidate reached the 50 percent threshold.
He added that he feels strongly about his ability to pull out a win in Virginia and Maryland on Tuesday — during the Potomac Primaries, along with Washington, D.C. — after taking Louisiana and Kansas.
“I think we’ll get a nice little bump out of what happened in Kansas,” Huckabee told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“If you look at where our votes are coming from, it’s clearly from the conservatives. I think that makes sense. I am the most conservative candidate left standing,” he later said.
But Huckabee trails McCain badly in the delegate count, 719 to 234 before the Washington results are included. The eventual nominee needs to secure 1,191 delegates, and only about 1,000 are still in play. He also has only about 27 percent of the vote in recent Virginia polling compared to 55 percent for McCain.
Karl Rove, former senior adviser to President Bush, said while McCain hasn’t won over conservatives yet, in the 2000 GOP primary race, Bush didn’t get more than two-thirds to three-quarters of the vote until a month after McCain, his principal opponent, stepped out of the race.
“It is impossible for Governor Huckabee to win the nomination,” said Rove, a FOX News contributor. “He would have to win 83 percent of the delegates in the contest after Super Tuesday,” which Rove said can’t be done after a loss in Washington and a beauty contest in Louisiana.
“I am not certain I’d take a lot of solace from yesterday. As we get into these big states with big primaries, I think we’ll see a consolidation around McCain,” Rove said.
But unlike Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the GOP race on Thursday, Huckabee said he is not ready to hand over the nomination to McCain. He also said he isn’t moved by Rove’s prognostications.
“Karl Rove has also maxed out personal contributions to John McCain so I’m not saying he doesn’t know what he’s talking about politically, but he’s not infallible either. And the point is, Karl is a supporter of John McCain,” Huckabee said while campaigning at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., which was founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.
“The Democrats haven’t settled their nominee either, so for us to suddenly act like we have to all step aside and have a coronation instead of an election, that’s the antithesis of everything Republicans are supposed to believe,” Huckabee told NBC. “We believe competition breeds excellence and the lack of it breeds mediocrity.”
A look at exit polling from Louisiana shows that McCain remains very unpopular among Republicans who consider themselves very conservative. Speaking to “FOX News Sunday,” President Bush said McCain may have to work harder.
“He is a conservative. Look, he is very strong on national defense. He is tough fiscally. He believes the tax cuts ought to be permanent. He is pro-life. His principles are sound and solid as far as I’m concerned,” Bush said.
Huckabee said he, his campaign team and supporters are fired up by the record hits and contributions on his Web site, and he is going to continue to demonstrate differences between him and his opponent, particularly on issues like tax cuts and immigration.
Huckabee acknowledged that he will vote for for the Republican nominee no matter who it is, rejected the notion that he’s on any short list to be McCain’s running mate and refused to give it consideration at this point.
“I’m not going to be asked. I think it’s pretty evident that there would be a whole lot of people on the list long, long before me, and one of them would say ‘yes,”‘ Huckabee said.
FOX News’ Serafin Gomez contributed to this report
Either nobody knows what a Christian is, there are no Christians here or nobody can write anything without an attack on their rival. Same for conservatives.
For all you mormon zealots………..You are no better for attacking Amy. FYI —not all people here that defend biblical truth are southern baptists. I am not as I live in PA where we have no southern baptists. The truth is that ……………………….TRUTH reigns from God’s people everywhere when it come to defending the true faith and the Holy Bible. I am not even a baptist————without the southern label. True bible believing Christians transcend denominations.
Truth is out there ………..or go on the same path of what you think is right ————-
There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end is destruction. Proverbs
[...] McCain had won the 2008 Republican caucuses in the state with 87.2 percent of precincts reporting. Huckabee Challenges Washington Caucus Results - You Decide 08! I’m speaking of the caucus held on Feb. [...]
Wow, McCain and Huckabee COMBINED did not even equal 50% of the vote….
How much was still for Romney and how much was for Ron Paul?
Amy -
Get some help. You have problems that go far beyond your Mormon upbringing. Your hostility is creepy.
9 years of studying Mormonism isn’t very impressive. 50 years of living it gives one much more perspective that 9 years of reading anti Mormon propoganda.
I didn’t consider myself to be a republican until I heard Ron Paul at the Reagan Library debate. I challenge anyone to take the “Pepsi Challenge” with Ron Paul. Go to his website or watch him on YouTube.com. Spend 10-15 minutes reading not only his stance on the issues, but the reasons for his views.
http://worldnetdaily.com/
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PatrickJBuchanan/2008/02/12/hucks_hour_of_power?page=full&comments=true
During his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, among the best he has delivered, Mitt Romney suspended his campaign, so as not to imperil GOP prospects in the fall. Said Mitt, “If I fight on … all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Sens. Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.”
Thus did Romney endorse the John McCain view that the Democrats who intend to pull all U.S. combat brigades out by a date certain are raising the “white flag of surrender” to Islamofascist terror.
In this photo provided by CBS, Republican presidential hopeful former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee talks in the Green Room before appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” in Washington, Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008. (AP Photo/CBS Face the Nation, Karin Cooper)
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But when Mike Huckabee, who also delivered one of his best at CPAC, was asked if he would stand down for the good of the party, as his winning the nomination is now a near-mathematical impossibility, he brusquely dismissed such demands as “total nonsense.”
“I didn’t major in math,” said the Baptist preacher, “I majored in miracles.” Good for Huck. Why should he drop out?
For too long conservatives have suppressed their convictions or meekly submitted, so as not to oppose a Republican president or get out of step with the party leadership.
Because they did not wish to undercut George H.W. Bush, too many went along with his tax hikes and quota bill. And they paid the price in 1992.
Because they did not want to get out of step with their K Street contributors, too many went along with the refusal of Bush I and Bush II to secure America’s borders. Belatedly, they have awakened to what “going along” has done to their country.
Because they did not want to get out of step with Newt and Dole, too many conservatives went along with NAFTA, Most Favored Nation trade status for China and the surrender of sovereignty to the World Trade Organization.
Result: $800 billion trade deficits, deindustrialization of the nation, and a dependency on foreigners for the necessities of our national life and for the borrowed money to pay for them.
Now, they all wonder why manufacturing jobs are leaving for China, why median family income no longer rises as in the Reagan era, why the Reagan Democrats are going home.
Because too many did not want to be seen as not supporting a Republican president in time of war, only six House Republicans voted to deny Bush a blank check for war.
Did the rest have no grave concern about the wisdom of invading Mesopotamia to dethrone a tyrant and democratize a nation that has never known democracy, when George H.W. Bush himself, wiser than his son, halted the Army of Desert Storm rather than take Baghdad?
Because Bush demanded it, too many conservatives went along with No Child Left Behind, Medicare funding of prescription drugs and the largest increases in social spending since LBJ. And what did their capitulation to Big Government Conservatism do for them, except earn them the contempt of the base, which they manifestly deserved?
Thinking is hard work, said Mark Twain — that is why so few engage in it.
For too long, conservatives have not been thinking, but living on the inherited intellectual capital of the past. They have failed to see that the world has changed since Reagan’s time and we must change with it.
The truth is the prospective Republican nominee is frozen in the past. Though an invasion of his nation is taking place on the border of his own state, John McCain is still reciting Emma Lazarus on the Golden Door. Though China manipulated its currency to seize our markets and loot our industry, and the European Union imposes value-added taxes — tariff equivalents — on U.S. imports, McCain is still babbling on about Smoot-Hawley.
Though the Cold War has been over for a generation, McCain has become more bellicose. He warns us new wars are coming, demands the ouster of Vladimir Putin from the G-8 and threatens Iran. If there is a single tripwire for war laid down in the time of Dean Acheson and John Foster Dulles that John McCain thinks we should pull up, or a single alliance he has urged us to review, this writer has not heard of it.
With the president at 30 percent and the party about to lose seats in both houses of Congress, conservatives should not be closing ranks but demanding to know why.
Huckabee has a chance to do himself a world of good by piling up votes and delegates and making himself a conservative alternative to McCain. But he also has a chance to serve his party and country, by putting on the table the issues neither party is addressing.
Are we as overextended strategically and militarily as we surely are financially and fiscally? Should we stick with free trade if our rivals are rabid economic nationalists? If we let 12 million to 20 million illegals stay, how do we stop the next 12 million to 20 million from coming in?
For his party’s and his country’s sake, as well as his own, Mike Huckabee should keep the conversation going. Because right now, his party is looking at Hillary, Obama — or Bush’s third term. Pat Buchanan is a founding editor of The American Conservative magazine, and the author of many books including State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America .
FORCE A REAL REPUBLICAN CONVENTION!
The current choice is McCain or Huckabee.
If you really like McCain then vote for McCain and prepare yourself for a Democrat President.
If you like Huckabee then vote for Huckabee.
If you don’t like either, then vote for Huckabee.
If you like Romney, then vote for Huckabee.
Do any of you babbling children know what a Real Republican Convention is?
Have you ever heard of a “Dark Horse Candidate”?
We Could end up with Newt Gingrich and Condi Rice on the ticket.
WE could end up with someone who just got shoved aside by the media, like Duncan Hunter.
The Media and the bribe takers in DC and the bribe givers in NY have tried to buy this one from the beginning. Now they are trying to extort you vote for McCain by threatening you with the doom of Clinton or Obama.
Think, you idiots, think. Keep the Republican Party honest. End up with the best candidate for America.
Force a true open convention. Vote for Huckabee. Let’s slow down and take another look at our choices.
IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO GET THIS ONE RIGHT.
MOST OF OUR POLITICAL LEADERS ARE MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR OWN FUTURES THAN THEY ARE ABOUT OURS.
VOTE HUCKABEE.
Wayne, I commented to you two posts but FOX did not post it…