North Little Rock, AR-

Shortly after his campaign was first alerted by FNC, about the West Virginia victory, a jubilant Mike Huckabee , along with his wife Janet, voted at their polling station in North Little Rock.

 Huckabee then took a few moments to speak to reporters about his” great win”  West Virginia, and denied any back-room deal by his campaign in the West Virginia win. ” There wasn’t even a front-deal, ” Huckabee said.

“No there wasn’t a deal, I think maybe the McCain people and the Ron Paul people once they realized there guy wasn’t going to win.. voted for us. “Huckabee said.” We won, and we won despite being incredibly outspent as we were in Iowa and other places.People are responding to our message,and the votes today were votes for us. Were excited about it and were deeply grateful to the people of West Virginia.”

  

FNC’s Jake Gibson Reported earlier, in an effort to block Romney and ensure a win, McCain WV delegates, who’s candidate was losing that convention, decided to throw their backing behind Huckabee.  FNC asked Huckabee to respond to the Romney campaign’s West Virginia campaign manager, Beth Myers who described  it as” back room deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney.”

 ” I thought (Romney) was saying yesterday no whining? So is it no whining or whining? He can even keep a straight answer on the whining or now whining question, “Huckabee said,” He was saying that I was a liberal, and now he’s saying that I was taking votes from bc I was too conservative, and pulling conservative votes. So which is it?am I conservative taking votes from conservative views, or am I a liberal? Am I a whiner or is he a whiner?”

     

Los Angeles, CA-

After a debate where Mike Huckabee was largely left on the sidelines with Libertarian Ron Paul, due to a format that favored the two leading contenders, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, Huckabee is looking for a boost in the last days before the mega-state primaries on February, 5th. Huckabee today embarks on a pre-Tsunami Tuesday campaign swing that will lead him through many of the Southern, and Heartland states-like Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Georgia- that are at the center of his Southern state strategy; the last stand for this Little-Train-That-Could of GOP presidential campaigns.

” I am optimistic about our chances and the path forward seems clear,” Huckabee said, in a message titled “Full Throttle”, to supporters yesterday.”When I look at Super Tuesday, I see a number of key Southern states, and other strong  conservative states, that are likely to add to our delegate count and put us on the right track towards winning the Republican nomination.”

However, due to McCain’s  freight train-like momentum, after back to back primary wins, and gargantuan endorsements like the Governator’s today in California( a delegate-heavy Super Tuesday state), Huckabee’s effort, while herculean, could fall well short of it’s intended target. Verifiable signs of the tough road head for the Huckabee campaign are already appearing, like large hurdles in front of a sprinter, trying to catch up to the lead runner. According to poll numbers released today in some of those Southern states, McCain leads Huckabee by double digits.

Insider Advantage has McCain leading Huckabee in Tennessee, 33 to 25. In Georgia, where Huckabee campaigned recently, he is down 11 points, 35 to 24 (5% MOE).

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Sen Clinton knows the best way to a reporters heart is through his (or her) stomach. She passed out candy canes to reporters in New Hampshire, and today she walked the aisles of her campaign plane spooning out heaps of southern peach cobbler from her former home town of Little Rock, Arkansas. The dessert was delicious, but may have had the opposite of its intended effect with one of my colleagues; he says the cobbler gave him horrible heartburn, and only Rolaids’ relief kept him from rolling around in the aisles.