Presidential News and Notes

It was pretty hilarious that the Mike Huckabee press bus ran out of gas twice this morning (don’t worry, the campaign ultimately delivered reporters to the airport) but I think we all know now that the Huckabee Show isn’t a comedy act anymore.

Now he is contesting the results in Washington state (which are undoubtedly too close not to question) and asking whether or not John McCain can excite the base to turn out in a general election this fall. I think Huckabee has clearly gotten the message — that he is NOT going to be on the McCain ticket as vice presidential nominee — but now is the time to brand himself for other future jobs. Does he intend to collect more delegates than Mitt Romney so he can muck up Mitt’s shot at 2012 as well? Does he want to be a bridge from the McCain administration to the conservative world? Will he throw McCain over the minute he loses to a Democratic nominee this fall?

With all these surprise wins Huckabee keeps racking up, despite the fact that he can’t wrest the nomination away from McCain, it’s time we start asking: What does Mike have in mind? He may not know, but I know one thing for sure: Mike Huckabee is having the time of his life.

On to other matters — Wimp Watch continues! John Edwards wasn’t enjoying enough press from those breaking news alerts yesterday about him meeting secretly with Hillary Clinton last week and how he was scheduled to meet with Barack Obama yesterday. The report I heard on MSNBC made it sound like Edwards had canceled yesterday’s meeting because Obama staff was referring questions to the Edwards team. Today they are both saying the meeting will be rescheduled but they didn’t want it to attract so much attention. All I can say is, I can’t wait for the torturous Edwards endorsement marathon to be over. Come on John — cough it up.

Finally, I made QUITE an error in yesterday’s post. To those loyal readers who may have seen it: When noting that Clinton has paid the firm of her pollster, Mark Penn, $4.3 million (covered, we assume, by that $5 million loan she gave herself), I meant to add the Fascinating Fact that McCain has not had a pollster since June. I originally left out the “not,” which made it very un-fascinating.

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