It turns out that Grassroots matter more than Greenbacks. This past Tuesday, McCain won big, Huckabee won better than expected, and Romney won any state in which no one else was competing (mostly caucus states, curiously).  Romney suspended his campaign this morning.

I am a Huckabee supporter for two reasons:  The Fair Tax, and I despise Romney's supporters.  I kind of like Romney (was rooting for him before I switched to Huck, and would definitely vote for him if he gets back in the race and wins the nomination), but the Mittwits are intolerable. (What about Pro-life, War on Terror, and the rest?  you may ask.  From what I see, all the candidates are pretty staunch on the social and national defense issues, so I have to look at what differentiates them.  Economic issues come next)

Example:  This past Monday, on Glenn Beck's radio program, guest host Pat Gray had a "very special message" for "Reverend" Huckabee.  It was a sugary, snarky, request for Huckabee to get out of the race; apparently, Gray assumed that Huckabee was going to do abysmally on Tuesday.  The smug condescension that Gray exhibited was right in line with the attitude that all the Romney supporters held, and I think it's a major reason Huck is still in right now, while Romney has jumped.  People don't like being called bigots, when they're not.  And people don't like lies being told about their candidate (how silly to describe Huckabee as a "Liberal" or "not-conservative")  The blowback is evident in the fact that Romney came in third in most of the Red States, especially the South.

Conventional wisdom on what Romney does with his delegates is that they will go to McCain; Romney indicated that in his speech today.  Since Mitt was the "only true conservative" in the race, his tacit support of McCain shows that McCain must not be as bad as everyone keeps saying.

SO... according to Realclearpolitics.com, the delegate count stands as:

McCain:  720
Romney: 279
Huckabee: 197
Paul:  14

If you add the delegates that Romney's bagged to McCain's pile, that gives McCain 999 delegates, just 192 delegates short of the magic number.

It is, of course, impossible for Huckabee to win; as of this date, there are still about 1170 delegates unclaimed.  Huckabee would have to win 999 of them to beat McCain.  ConWis says that Huck is vying for McCain's VP slot, but that's changed now that Romney has bowed out, and talk is that Romney might possibly be McCain's VP (among others).

But it was supposedly impossible for Huckabee to be here, at this time, in the first place.  By all rights, Huck should have been pushed out of the process back in December (or earlier).  His dogged determination, and amazing debate skills, have kept him in as the "big names" have dropped out.  It's entirely possible that McCain, reverting to his true nature, blows his top over something or other and begins making a lot of unhelpful comments, driving people to Huck.  It's possible that he begins attacking Huckabee (like Romney did), and shores up support for Huckabee.

Of course, it's also possible that Huckabee says something stupid, like "Isn't it true that POW's believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers?"

UPDATE:  Or, Huckabee could get a pretty major endorsement:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080208/ap_on_el_pr/dobson_huckabee