McCain faces competition against Huckabee

After Super Tuesday, Republican John McCain emerged as a big winner, but the Arizona Senator failed to eliminate his rivals. Meanwhile, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama split victories in a historic battle for the White House this fall.McCain, who swept large states like California and New York and opened up a sizable lead in the all-important delegate count, had hoped to collect enough to become the overwhelming favorite and eliminate the competition. How does former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee rank in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, now that he’s the only major challenger left to McCain? McCain’s closest challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, bowed out Thursday, saying a long and bitter GOP primary fight would only benefit the Democrats. That left Huckabee as the favored candidate among many party hard-core conservatives. “If Huckabee decides to stay in the race and really becomes aggressive, it’s going to make it much more difficult for John McCain,” said Arizona State University pollster Bruce Merrill. “All the very conservative support–which is a great deal of the base of the Republican Party–could really go over to Huckabee,” Merrill added. So far, Huckabee has shown neither the inclination to attack McCain nor the ability to expand his support significantly beyond his base of conservative Christians. That means his chances of actually taking the Republican nomination away from McCain are very slim.However, he could be a thorn in McCain’s side to a degree that could actually prevent the needed number of delegates to lock the nomination for McCain, which could result in a total chaos at the convention.McCain stumbled in the first elections since becoming the apparent Republican nominee for president, losing the Kansas caucuses as another round of states voted Saturday. Despite losing to fHuckabee in Kansas and Louisiana, McCain is all but assured his party’s conservative-wing endorsement. Huckabee is far behind McCain in the delegates race, with NBC News estimating McCain has 719 and Huckabee 234. Mitt Romney, who suspended his campaign last week, had 298.A contender needs 1,191 delegates to secure the GOP nomination, and yet only 819 delegates are left undeclared.”I don’t know how the math works out,” Huckabee said after Russert ran through the numbers. But he noted that McCain also has to reach 1,191 and that if he doesn’t, the nomination would be decided at the Republican convention.Huckabee described Saturday’s results–trouncing McCain in Kansas and also winning Louisiana– as “a great day for us.”