Huckabee vs. Lautenberg? It won't happen, says N.J. campaign director

Mike Huckabee won't become the second ex-Arkansas Governors mansion resident to run for northeast Senate seat: Getty Images Photo
Mike Huckabee’s New Jersey campaign director says he likes the idea of the former presidential candidate moving to New Jersey to run for U.S. Senate against Frank Lautenberg, but said he’s not going to ask.

"From a pure mechanics perspective, I could make the call, but he would laugh me off the phone," said Peter Kane of Huckabee, who ended his bid for the presidency Tuesday after losing in Texas and Ohio to Sen. John McCain.

This morning, the Republican Party awoke to the news that onetime GOP frontrunner Anne Evans Estabrook had suspended her run for the U.S. Senate because of health reasons.

While asserting that the party needs someone, in his words, of "greater stature" than State Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (R-Morris) to defeat Lautenberg, Kane reluctantly said the jobless Huckabee won’t be the one. It was one thing for a blatant political opportunist like Hillary Clinton to transplant from Arkansas to New York to run for the U.S. Senate, but it’s not Huckabee’s style, Kane said.

"Mike Huckabee has too much of a sense of humor, and he wouldn’t be able to do it with a straight face," he explained. "I mean, what would Saturday Night Live do with something like that?"

Kane said Huckabee’s unsuccessful run represented a new break from the divisive national campaigns in recent years. "He brought a new political ethos of how to touch people, and I think people were receptive to that message," said the Huckabee supporter. "Obama has elements, McCain elements, but purest expression of that was Huckabee."

Absent the seven-year residency requirement for New Jersey governors, Huckabee with his executive experience as a former governor of Arkansas and his particular people skills would provide an excellent contrast to Gov. Jon Corzine, in Kane’s view, and would make a great New Jersey governor, he said.

"Corzine’s not connecting with the people, which is exactly what Mike Huckabee does," said Kane.