Mathematically, Mike Huckabee can’t win the presidential nomination. (Or at least the odds are prohibitive.) So why does he run? For one thing, he’s not ready to say he couldn’t win a miraculously brokered convention. And, on reflection, I’m beginning to believe he’s probably not running for the vice presidency. As he himself said yesterday:
“There’s no illusion on my part that if I hang in here and keep running against him he’s liable to say, ‘Oh, thanks for hanging in there and running against me for so long. I think I’ll pick you as my running mate,'” Huckabee said.
So then, what? He runs a cheap campaign — though not so cheap that it isn’t pouring money and other benefits into his family. He shares a national spotlight with McCain. He builds cred for a talk show, a TV pastorate, etc. What else does he have to do at the moment?
On the other hand, Howard Kurtz notes that the media has been wrong before about Huckabee — and lots more.