The March 4th primaries could put McCain over the top for the GOP nomination and Huckabee officially in second place for the 2008 GOP race.

These are HISTORIC achievements that to many seemed unimaginable last year. This VLOG and the FNC political unit however never once wrote off McCain last year when others did.

And while Huckabee went virtually unnoticed until last years Ames strawpoll, we identified him in January of 2007 as the darkhorse most likely to surprise.

Now McCain has 1014 delegates. He needs 177 to reach the needed 1191.

Huckabee has won 257 delegates. He needs 24 to best Mitt Romney who won 280.

McCain is expected to take VT and RI outright but neither Texas nor Ohio are winner take all – they are awarded proportionally by state senate and congressional district respectively. If Huckabee wins any combination of 8 Texas state senate or Ohio congressional districts he will win 24 delegates and thus go ahead of Romney. Undisputed 2nd place.

Huckabee will make no definitive statements Tuesday night about the future of his campaign. But look for news on Thursday when he returns to Little Rock. For weeks the Huckabee campaign has been doing an unofficial victory lap. The governor and his staff are delighted by his success and acknowledged status as a conservative leader who will now be well positioned to run again in the future.

Camp Huck is steering people away from veep speculation. The governor doesn’t expect an offer and insiders say if it came he should reject it. They think Huckabee’s future prospects are stronger making his own way rather than playing #2 to McCain.

McCain must first co-opt the RNC, and its a long complex process to take over the sprawling Bush admin national party apparatus. They are for now merely studying how past VP’s have been chosen and discussing how to come up with their own process.

Republicans all over the country are emailing and calling the campaign with their runningmate advice. While Huckabee would have us believe he is disinterested for now, that has never been the case for Mitt Romney.

Though Romney and McCain fought tooth and nail and grew legitimately angry with one another for exaggerated charges and counter charges throughout their year long battle, alot of republican grey beards think they make a good team on paper…..

At the conclusion of his victory remarks in Alexandria, Va tonight John McCain used Barack Obama’s famous line “fired up and ready to go!” This after McCain on the Senate floor today made a show of crossing the aisle into democratic territory to shake hands, back-slap, and trade campaign trail stories with Obama!

The two mention one another almost daily now. Obama, in his victory remarks from Madison Wisconsin tonight, praised McCain’s military service even as he bashed McCain’s policies as out of date and out of touch. McCain writes off Obama and Clinton, et al, as defeatocrats.

There were a few nervous moments for McCainiacs as the Virginia returns were tabulated but otherwise it was a big night. He erases embarrassing setbacks in La. and Ks. over the weekend. He has over 800 delegates by all counts now. He is probably only 250 delegates away from clinching the nomination.

Is he impatient for Mike Huckabee to bow out? YOU BET! Huckabee’s continued presence in the race keeps alive the discussion of McCain’s weak support among strong conservatives. When Huckabee is finally gone conservative carping will further diminish for lack of a McCain alternative and the unification process will progressively accelerate. Will some conservatives NEVER back McCain? Probably. But don’t underestimate the potential for that to change. When those same conservatives are confronted with an imminent election of Obama or Clinton, they may see things differently.
Huckabee will focus on Texas and Ohio for the next few weeks. That’s going to force McCain to continue to campaign as opposed to taking a victory lap and starting the general election organizational push we described in earlier posts.

With all due respect to the spectacular campaign that McCain so understandably praises at every opportunity…McCain is the presumptive nominee now and barring a catastrophic change Huckabee is not going to win.

McCain has much work to do and for now is not yet free of the HUCK! Once again proving that the grassroots are never to be underestimated.