Mike Huckabee fashioned a new campaign identity after his victories in five Southern primaries on Tuesday, proclaiming himself the candidate of the Republicans’ true base, the South. “Texas is going to be a big, big state for us,” he told reporters late Tuesday. “We’ll spend a lot of time there. I think it’s a natural place for us to do well,” he said, loquacious and ebullient after weeks of bad news, even as aides tried to quiet him, finally, for the night. Texas political experts do not disagree with Mr. Huckabee: he is a good fit in a state still casting around for a Republican to love, suspicious of Senator John McCain of Arizona, and full of evangelical Christians. “I think Huckabee winds up running pretty strong here,” said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas and a lecturer in government there.
The New York Times
Huckabee Claims Identity as Candidate of the South
(Feb. 7)
