Mike Huckabee

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will visit New Jersey in April as the keynote speaker at the New Jersey Right to Life convention in Woodbridge.  Huckabee, who ran for President in 2008, is viewed as a potential candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. 

BLOOMINGTON, Minn.  – Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee wondered out loud today why the New Jersey delegation had asked him to speak to their delegation this afternoon.”

“Why on earth would they invite a southern boy to speak to the folks of New Jersey today?  Must have been the novelty,” he said.

That was the extent of Huckabee’s remarks regarding New Jersey today.  Instead, he launched into an eight minute speech praising Sen. John McCain as an honorable man who’s ready to be president, along with the pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for Vice President.

“Today you’re going to hear us say wonderful things, but the good thing is we don’t have to make it up.  We genuinely believe John McCain is tested, prepared and ready to be president,” he said. 

As Camille Andrews embarks upon a congressional campaign that may or not be a placeholder candidacy, she might consider the recent history of wives running for office while their husbands are also running.

When Nevada Congressman Jim Gibbons ran for Governor in 2006, his wife, Dawn Gibbons, ran for his open House seat.  She finished third in the GOP primary with 25% of the vote, and Jim Gibbons narrowly won the GOP primary. And in 2002, Arkansas First Lady Janet Huckabee ran for Secretary of State and lost 62%-38% in the same election her husband, Mike Huckabee, was re-elected Governor by a 53%-47% margin.

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.

Huckabee spokesman Peter KaneFormer Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's Super Tuesday performance sparked his supporters here in New Jersey, including State Campaign Director Peter Kane, who also couldn't resist taking a shot at the GOP field's favorite target, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney.

"They said we had a second tier candidate," Kane said in a statement. "They said the Iowa win was a fluke. They said we were just in it to be a spoiler. They said we should just get out of the race now. They said we had limited appeal to a narrow slice of the electorate."

Huckabee picked up victories in his homestate of Arkansas, in Georgia, Alabama and West Virginia, and was competing in at least two more states Wednesday morning.

"With wins in several states, throughout this country and the delegate count
rising steadily maybe this has finally become a two person race," said Kane. "And maybe, it is time for Gov. Romney to bow out gracefully and leave the battle to the one true, sincere conservative in this race: Mike Huckabee."

Their candidates are not expected to win in New Jersey, but Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul supporters are preparing for different kinds of victories.

Huckabee state campaign head Peter Kane spent part of the day working the phones and handing out flyers at supermarkets. He’ll hold a victory party tonight at the Scotchwood Diner in Scotch Plains.

Two final New Jersey polls show Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain with leads in their respective fields.

A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll shows Clinton leading Barack Obama 46%-41%. A Strategic Vision poll shows Clinton leading Obama 47%-41%.

The Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll shows McCain with 53%, Mitt Romney with 24%, and Mike Huckabee with 5%. The Strategic Vision poll shows McCain with 55%, Romney with 25%, and Huckabee with 10%.

Just a few months ago, New Jersey’s presidential primary – moved up to February in a quest for national political relevance – was looking like a non-event. Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani had considerable leads; in the case of the GOP, the winner-take-all primary meant that there were no delegates available to the other contenders.