Mike Huckabee Surprises With Southern State Wins, Stays in Republican Race 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 5, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee surprised political observers again with a strong showing in several Super Tuesday states. He catapulted ahead of rivals John McCain and Mitt Romney to capture a handful of southern states and do well in enough in others to say he plans to stay in the race a little bit longer.
Huckabee told a roaring crowd at his headquarters in Little Rock that he would continue in the Republican presidential race until someone obtains enough delegates to become the nominee.
"The one way you can’t win a race is to quit it, and until somebody beats me, I’m going to answer the bell for every round of this fight," he said.
Huckabee insisted in an AP interview that he is a competitive candidate as well who has the support of pro-life and conservative voters.
"I’ve got to say that Mitt Romney was right about one thing — this is a two-man race. He was just wrong about who the other man in the race was. It’s me, not him," Huckabee said.
“The conservatives are in the South, and the conservative base of the Republican Party, I’m winning it. And there’s just no way to argue that," Huckabee said in the AP interview. "Romney had to be able to show that he was really pulling those conservative votes, and he’s not."
West Virginia provided Huckabee with his first win of the day when he received 18 delegates and just over 50 percent of the vote in the caucus there.
Huckabee easily captured his home state of Arkansas with 60 percent of the vote but he also succeeded elsewhere in the region. Neither McCain nor Romney received more than 21 percent of the vote there.
The governor won the state of Alabama with 41 percent of the vote compared to 37 percent for McCain and 18 percent for Romney.
Georgia and Tennessee provided Huckabee with close wins as Huckabee won the former with 34 percent to 32 percent for McCain and 30 percent for Romney. Tennessee voters gave Huckabee 34 percent of the vote with 32 percent for McCain and Romney 24 percent.
Huckabee came close to winning Missouri and fared well in Oklahoma with 33 percent in a close second place. He also received 20 percent in Minnesota and North Dakota, 16 percent in Illinois and 15 percent in Delaware and Montana.
