As someone who faced criticism himself for not exiting his presidential nominating race "properly," former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee suffered through some of the same criticisms Sen. Hillary Clinton is going through right now. (Though of course the math was even more stark for him.)
So this morning I asked Huckabee what he thought of Clinton's dilemma.
"In the words of her husband, 'I feel her pain!'" Huckabee says.
"She is playing by the rules. She didn’t make the rules, the party did," he continues. "If they wanted to have the game end before the end or regulation, they should have written the rules that way. Does Major League baseball or the NFL prematurely end the game if one team gets overwhelmingly ahead? Even in boxing, unless there is a knockout, the fight goes the distance.
"The idea this 'hurts' the Democrats is not absolute. It hurts them if things get rancorous and personal (which it has). But the mere fact of the ongoing race doesn't automatically hurt. In fact, the Dems are on page 1 everyday and John McCain is on page 7.
"True, he's not really taking any body blows right now, but there is some value in being battle tested.
"There is one thing that has to be noted, however: As long as the only people calling for her to get out was Obama supporters it wasn’t a big deal. Now, she's beginning to see the defection of long time loyalists like McGovern and that hurts. If that continues, she may not have a choice if she wants to 'leave the party so as to get a return invitation.'"
Huckabee stayed in the race until McCain clinched the nomination, and I don't think the party was hurt by that. In fact, I think it might have kept McCain from a left turn early in the process, and since Huckabee conducted himself with class, he didn't hurt his chances for the future. Hillary's campaign has not been quite so classy and she may be approaching the point of burning bridges, but I doubt she really cares at this point.
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