Huckabee and Mosquitos

Every year near the end of winter I look forward to summer so that I can warm up and take a break from school, while at the same time work and make some money. Then as summer progresses I begin to wish that winter would return so that I can cool down and escape the yearly onslaught of mosquitos and gnats. You may ask what this has to do with a political blog, but I will now explain. No matter what you do during the summer there is always that annoying gnat, or mosquito that you just can't get rid of. It just hangs around and won't go away even after being smacked down over and over again. In this year's primary process there has been one candidate that is very similar to these annoying summer pests, his name ... Mike Huckabee. He emerged as a virtual no-name running for President. He garnered popularity with his quick wit and sense of humor. Being a Southern Baptist preacher he had a natural appeal to the evangelical christians who pushed him way up in the polls. Some people called this sudden surge of popularity a "Huckaboom." His popularity climaxed right as the Iowa caucuses were to take place, and he reaped the benefits winning the state. As always happens, increased popularity was followed by increased scrutiny on his record, and soon the "Huckaboom" began transforming into the "Huckabust." His popularity among evangelicals remained, but a closer look at his "more liberal than conservative record" as governor of Arkansas caused other conservatives to take another look and turn away. After the Iowa caucuses Huckabee struggled to get support outside of his base of christian conservatives. Since that time Huckabee has continued being persistent and trying to use his preacher style of talking to convince people that he actually has a chance.

Months later Huckabee is still persisting in his goal to become the Republican party's nominee, and in the process he has become like that annoying summer mosquito that just won't go away. While he has every right to stay in as long as he wants, today I want to write why I believe he should drop out now.
1. It is nearly impossible mathematically for Huckabee to get the amount of delegates needed to win the nomination. If you don't believe me, consider this. In order for a republican to capture the nomination, he has to receive 1,191 of an available 2380 delegates to go to the National Convention. Right now Huckabee has 217. There are 1,138 delegates remaining that can be won. Huckabee needs 974 of those delegates to win. That means he would need to win 86% of the remaining delegates. In other words he would have to beat McCain in landslide fashion in every single remaining contest in or to do so. Huckabee has faired well in the south, and in states with a large evangelical population, but the remaining contests highly favor McCain. When Huckabee was asked about this he said "I didn't major in math, I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them." Well Mike, I'd say you have a better chance of turning water into wine than winning this nomination.
2. The longer that Huckabee stays in, the longer he delays the unification of the Republican party for this year's general election. The Republican national convention will take place September 1-4 of this year. In other words only 2 months before the general election. If Huckabee continues dragging this on until then it will make it very difficult to form an effective campaign against the democrats.
3. If he were to pull of the impossible and capture the nomination, he would have to rely on an even bigger miracle to win in November. Huckabee has a very limited and small base of support. He can win the south, but outside of that base he has little to no support. He has alienated much of the Republican party, with his strange ideas and his blatant hypocrisy when it comes to negative campaigning. Many republicans have a hard time trusting him, which is no surprise considering he is #6 on last year's Judicial Watch's top 10 most corrupt politician list.

Those are just 3 reasons why I believe that Mike Huckabee should follow Romney's lead and graciously step down. When a mosquito sticks around for too long, we tend to get impatient and smack it until it finally goes down. Well its time for the Republicans to put their foot down and force Huckabee out of this race and to restore some level of sanity to our lives.