SIDEBAR: Huckabee finally bows out, promises to help McCain

Mar 5, 2008, 6:27 GMT

Washington - It took until Senator John McCain had mathematically clinched the Republican Party's nomination for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to bow out of the race.

When the time finally came Tuesday night, Huckabee thanked his supporters and congratulated his rival with the usual good humour that had endeared him to his conservative supporters across the country.

'We started this effort with very little recognition and virtually no resources. We ended with slightly more recognition and very few resources,' Huckabee quipped during his concession speech in Texas.

Long considered only a second-tier presidential candidate with little national recognition, Huckabee burst leapt to prominence on January 3 by winning Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses, the contest that kicks off the long nomination battle.

Huckabee capitalized on discontent among the centre-right party's social conservatives, who were unhappy with the top Republican candidates. His light-hearted, populist style made him look at ease on the campaign trail and helped him stand out in debates.

But Huckabee lacked the infrastructure to build on his Iowa succes, and fell short in the weeks that followed. After McCain took an insurmountable lead in the delegate count on February 5, when 21 states held Republican contests, Huckabee for weeks fended off questions about why he remained in the race.

While chief rival Mitt Romney dropped out and endorsed McCain, Huckabee, a Baptist preacher, insisted that Republican voters still deserved a choice.

In an appearance last month on the popular comedy show Saturday Night Live, Huckabee joked that 'the media loves to throw around the term mathematical impossibility.'

'Fortunately, ... I'm not a math guy,' he said. 'I'm more of a miracle guy.'

But Huckabee's continued candidacy highlighted McCain's own struggle to unite a party base sceptical of some of his more moderate stands on domestic policy.

Despite stalling McCain's victory speech, Huckabee has also been suggested as a possible vice-presidential pick, and on Tuesday he promised to help the Republican nominee unite the party.

'We'll be working on doing everything we can to help Senator McCain and to help our party,' Huckabee said. 'We aren't going away completely. We want to be a part of helping to keep the issues alive that have kept us in this race.'