Mike Huckabee

The campaign of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called Sunday for a review of the vote count in this weekend's GOP caucuses in Washington state, saying that Arizona Sen. John McCain was declared the winner prematurely. Ed Rollins, Huckabee's campaign chairman, said in a news release that it was "very unfortunate that the Washington state party chairman, Luke Esser, chose to call the race for John McCain after only 87% of the vote was counted."

Six days ago, John McCain effectively clinched the Republican nomination for president. Media outlets around the globe reported the news. Millions assumed the race was over. And yet, rival Mike Huckabee thinks he's still in it. "This is an election, not a coronation," a defiant Huckabee said Wednesday as he set out for Wisconsin, site of the next GOP primary. Day by day, Huckabee has become a growing nuisance to McCain.

Why does Mike Huckabee keep on running? The question takes on extra meaning today as the Arkansas Republican leaves Wisconsin, which holds its primary Tuesday, to take a break of about two days from the campaign trail -- to earn a fee by giving a speech in the Cayman Islands. "I have to make a living," an unusually testy Huckabee told reporters Wednesday in the Badger State. "I do that through my writing and through my speaking. I've been doing that for quite some time. . . .

The chief songwriter and founder of the band Boston has more than a feeling that he's being ripped off by Mike Huckabee. In a letter to the Republican presidential hopeful, Tom Scholz says that Huckabee is using his 1970s hit "More Than a Feeling" without his permission. A former member of the band, Barry Goudreau, has appeared with Huckabee at events, and they have played the song with Huckabee's band, Capitol Offense.

People musing about what keeps Mike Huckabee in the race for the presidency have wondered if he's sowing the ground for future television deals, angling for a vice presidential nod or getting ready to run for the White House again in 2012. If those are his goals, the former Arkansas governor isn't admitting it.

Mike Huckabee's bid for the Republican presidential nomination looks hopeless, but he continues to charm audiences on the campaign trail with his affability and folksy wit. In the days before Tuesday's Wisconsin primary, the former Arkansas governor quipped that: * He was accustomed to rough political fights from his experience in Arkansas, where being a Republican in a state with powerful Democratic politicians was "like being a fire hydrant in a neighborhood filled with dogs."

About two weeks after the next president is elected, Mike Huckabee will publish a book sharing details on his failed bid for the White House and offering his vision for remodeling the conservative movement. Sentinel, a conservative imprint of Penguin Group (USA), said it would publish the former Arkansas governor and onetime Republican presidential hopeful's next book, to be released Nov. 18.

Republican Mike Huckabee responded to a sharp offstage sound during his speech to the National Rifle Assn. by suggesting that it was Barack Obama diving to the floor because someone had aimed a gun at him. Hearing a loud noise, Huckabee interrupted his speech to say: "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he -- he dove for the floor." There were a few murmurs in the crowd. The Obama campaign had no comment.

Re "Obama in gun sights, Huckabee quips," May 17 I am absolutely appalled that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee would suggest, even in jest, that Sen. Barack Obama is a target for an assassin -- particularly in front of the most vociferous gun-toting audience in the country. What was he thinking? For those of us who remember November 1963 and the spring of 1968, when inspirational leaders in America were murdered, the prospect of repeating those dark days haunts us. Obama, because of his race and his challenge to the status quo, is surely vulnerable.