Huckabee ticked off Republican elite...and he doesn't care

Mike Huckabee dropped out of the Republican presidential rate Tuesday night after John McCain reached the 1,192 delegates needed to secure the nomination, but the former Arkansas governor will likely return to the spotlight, according to a syndicated column written by Roger Simon:

While some Huckabee supporters were hoping that he might get a vice presidential nod this year, Huckabee says they should forget it. "We have been given every signal that is not going to be considered," Huckabee said.

In fact, Huckabee has not been guaranteed even what losing candidates are often guaranteed: a speech at the party's convention. "It would be amazing if I was disinvited there," Huckabee said. "If this were the NCAA and the Final Four — two Democrats, two Republicans — I would be in it."

But politics is neither beanbag nor basketball, and many in the party are angry that Huckabee has stayed in the race this long.

And you know what? Huckabee doesn't care. And you know why? Because he remembers that in 1976, Ronald Reagan hung in all the way to the Republican convention. And even though Reagan lost the nomination to Gerald Ford, Reagan spent the next four years building a new Republican Party and a new coalition that eventually would carry him to victory.

These days, Huckabee is thinking all about coalitions. Here is how he described his supporters to me: "They are the disenfranchised Republicans, the invisible Republicans, the truck drivers, the flight attendants, the baggage handlers, the machine shop workers and union members. These are not members of the swankiest country clubs and not people whose kids are going on a legacy to Yale. They work hard to get their kids to community college. But they are conservative."