Winning Nights For Obama And Huckabee

Barack Obama added to his delegate total as he swept Saturday's Democratic contests, giving him a nice tailwind coming into today's Maine caucuses and three upcoming primaries February 12th.

John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee was handed a clear message that he's going to have to do more to unite an increasingly disaffected Republican electorate, especially when it comes to self-described conservatives. Mike Huckabee won both the Kansas and Louisiana primaries, while McCain squeaked past Huckabee for a narrow victory in Washington state.

Even worse news for McCain was what I call the Kiss O' Death - a quasi-endorsement from the current occupant of the White House.

In a Fox News interview, President Bush actually offered to help McCain with conservatives if he's the nominee. "I think that if John's the nominee, he's got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative," Bush said. "I'd be glad to help him if he's the nominee."

Of course, this assumes that President Bush has credentials among conservatives. If I were McCain, I'd be screaming `Nooooo! Don't help!' and throwing a phone at the TV after hearing that one.

As for Barack Obama, he won in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands yesterday, actually taking the pledged-delegate lead over Hillary Clinton for the first time. Of course, if you count superdelegates, Hillary is still ahead.

Mike Huckabee insists he has no intention of ending his campaign,even though the math isn't working in his favor. Even if he wins every remaining state by at least 50 percent of the vote to McCain's 40 percent, McCain would likely still be the GOP nominee.

"I know the pundits, and I know what they say: The math doesn't work out," Huckabee said Saturday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. "Well, I didn't major in math; I majored in miracles. And I still believe in those, too."

One of those miracles Huckabee is thinking about might just be a stampeded GOP convention...something Obama may be counting on for the Democrats as well. It's happened before.