Huckabee Won’t Concede Washington State
Posted on February 10, 2008
As you know, John McCain lost two of the three contests yesterday. He was losing narrowly in Washington state and then pulled ahead by a narrow margin (less than two points) toward the end. But then with 87% of the returns counted, the Washington state GOP, which runs the caucuses stopped releasing results. That left us and a lot of other news organizations in a bit of a quandary last night since it looked like McCain was going to pull it off. But as late as 1:30 AM on the east coast promised new results kept failing to materialize.
Then over night the Washington state GOP put out a press release announcing McCain the winner based on the 87% returns. Now, I think it would be borderline for a media organization to declare one candidate a winner when the margin separating first and second was 1.8% with 13% of the results still uncounted. But for the officials holding the election to declare the result on that basis is simply bizarre. But that’s what they did.
Via the Huckabee website:
The Washington State GOP, with 87.2 percent reporting, discontinued the counting process. We are looking into the matter. We are committed to making certain EVERY vote is counted.
As for what it means for McCain if we were to give him the benefit of the doubt on winning? I agree with this lefty.
You’d think just days after McCain’s Super Duper Tuesday victories, the GOP’s putative nominee might be able to secure a tad more than a quarter of the vote in what is, let’s face it, not exactly hillbilly territory, yet he barely even managed to edge out rapture-ready Mike Huckabee. But that’s not the worst of it. 16.5% of WA Republicans caucused for Mitt Romney despite having dropped out of the race, while 21% went for Ron Paul despite, well, him being Ron Paul. And 12.7% of Republican caucus goers — some of the party’s most dedicated and active members — proved so disaffected that they pledged “uncommittedâ€.
Michelle Malkin notes how interesting the dynamics at play are.
Semi-related: Rick Moran ponders the “ticket from hell”.
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Elections, News, Politics As Usual, Video
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6 Responses to “Huckabee Won’t Concede Washington State”
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IMHO if you put a charlatan Hick like Elmer Gantry Huckabee with an unscrupulous political hack like Ed Rollins you have the making of a demonic duo. Both of these guys put together wouldn’t have the integrity of Uriah Heep.
It doesn’t surprise me that evangelicals are following the Huckster like rats after the Pied Piper, what amazes me is the number of other Republicans who have fallen for Elmer’s pure unadulterated BS.
I don’t care for him either Edward, but I would challenge this if I were in his shoes.
It’s comments like these that bolster my support for Huckabee:
“…if you put a charlatan Hick like Elmer Gantry Huckabee…”
I could write for days about the hypocrisy of the Republicans and their deification of Mitt Romney despite not having any record as a fiscal or social conservative. Then, I could top that off with their demonization of Huckabee who has a record of being both in Arkansas. It is interesting how much of a waterboy for the right Huckabee was in Arkansas, and not just socially, but fiscally. I was there when Huckabee was sworn in as governor, and lived in Arkansas for about three years afterwards. No administration was better for the state of Arkansas. Roads were significantly improved, the education system was revamped. On both issues, Huckabee was able to turn around the failed policies of Clinton/Tucker. When Huckabee took office, Arkansas schools ranked #49 in the nation, today they are ranked 8th, and the best schools west of the Mississippi.
I began to support Huckabee’s as a potential presidential candidate back in 2000, when we were still giddy over the Bush candidacy. I was overjoyed when Mike decided to run for president.
Today, I am a resident of California, and have lived in several states. I personally believe that those of us on the evangelical right will be permanently marginalized if Huckabee drops out prematurely. I can not vote for McCain because I feel that he would be disastrous for the country’s future. It looks like McCain may win the nomination, but he is going to have to fight for it. Then, after McCain gets trounced by Obama, perhaps we can put up a true conservative in 2016.
We had several charlatans on stage in each of the debates, but Huckabee was not one of them. Fight on, Mike! Maybe a miracle can happen for you.
I’ll vote for Huckabee! If I were him, I’d challenge that Washington GOP’s early calling of the results. It is more than bizzare, it is un-democratic!
I encourage everyone to see Huckabee on the issues at http://www.mikehuckabee.com everyone vote for your candidate! Don’t listen to the media!
Republicans don’t need to count all of the votes all of the time
It may be an honest mistake but I am afraid Huckabee does not have a choice. If he lets this one go then other will be encouraged to do the same thus making it a bad precedent.
The anti-evangelical bias in the Republican party is something the party need to be ashamed of. The fools that practice it are traitors to the party because they choose to alienate their fellow conservatives instead of bridge the gap. Debate issues instead of making personal or group attacks.
Even if I ignored the fact that Huckabee is the only true social conservative in the race there is the fact he proposes eliminating the income tax. He also proposes getting our allies to actually do what they say in regards to Iraq instead of leaving us holding the bag financially.