Huckabee Preparing for Super Duper Tuesday

After dropping out of the race for the Republican Nomination, Duncan Hunter endorsed Mike Huckabee as “a man of outstanding character and integrity… [and his] personal choice.”
While it helps to have ex-competition praising his campaigning skills and moral values, Duncan Hunter’s support will have little effect on the overall campaign because an average of national polls conducted in January showed his followers only made up 1-2% of republicans. Placing second in South Carolina, may have hurt Huckabee more than expected because he now lacks momentum to coast in Florida, a state he has never expected to do well in. His lack of campaigning in Florida is probably due to the combination of Giuliani’s extended stint there as well as the general demographics—however, Florida is a key state for the general election and a Republican with only 13% support there may be less attractive in the eyes of the Republican convention. Regarding the Republican Primary in South Carolina, it seems that Fred Thompson pulled just enough votes away from Huckabee to hinder a win. Ironically, Huckabee’s popularity with the evangelical Christians significantly hindered Thompson’s projected base, and here Thompson launched one last attack on Huckabee before dropping out of the race. Today Huckabee appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and began the segment responding to a Romney’s most recent accusations that McCain once a backed a timetable to get out of Iraq. Interestingly, Huckabee defended McCain saying, “I’ve never known [him] to be dishonest.” His backing of John McCain serves as a way to differentiate himself from Romney, the other religiously controversial candidate, looks good for his moral integrity to defend one of his competitors and another step towards making it a race between him and McCain. To that end, later on in the interview, Huckabee asserted, “I don't have to slam John McCain. I think that presidential politics can be civil. I think people can have mutual respect for each other.” He also later addressed a proposition of a ticket between he and McCain saying, “[we] have entered into this race both looking for the same job. I'm not looking to be on his ticket. I don't think he's looking to be on mine.” In addition, angered families have publicized stories of Huckabee’s personal profit in a school shooting that took place in March of 1998. Apparently, Huckabee was offered $25,000 to write a book on youth violence using the event as a primary example and “demand[s] [that] the money go to the school, the victims' families or for scholarships for the wounded, not to the writer's bank account…he said no.” Numerous discrepancies over Huckabee’s ethics while governor of Arkansas continue to surface leaving constituents left pondering the validity of such claims and the repercussions of poor values for a candidate running on authenticity and a Christian world view.