Huckabee Fails to Get Decisive Edge Among Evangelicals

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Huckabee Concedes South Carolina Primary

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee lost by a narrow margin to Sen. John McCain in the Palmetto State, but said the process is "far from over."

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But there was little time for anything else. In Iowa, on the eve of the caucuses, Huckabee went on a pheasant-hunting trip, a move that garnered a lot of press coverage and allowed him to appeal to male voters. Huckabee said he would have liked to go on another outdoors adventure Wednesday when he collected an endorsement from Ray Scott, the well-known founder of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, but his schedule was too packed.

His organizers were also fighting the clock. When Sarah Huckabee, the candidate's 25-year-old daughter and national field director, arrived in South Carolina on Jan. 10, she found an operation that was essentially in "a one-room closet." She quickly had to find more space and take care of basics, such as setting up Internet service and installing phone lines, that had been done months ago by many of Huckabee's opponents.

"I would like to have had a month, or maybe even two weeks," Sarah Huckabee said.

The campaign tried to develop the same coalition of home-school families, pastors and other Christian conservatives that lifted them in Iowa, but with much less time and less coordination. Brenda Brown, a home-school mother who volunteered for the campaign in Rock Hill, organized a rally for Huckabee last month and had friends make calls on Huckabee's behalf. But aside from getting a list of people to call only in the past few weeks, she had almost no contact with Huckabee's formal staff in South Carolina.

On Monday, Huckabee attempted to highlight a five-point plan to stimulate the economy. But on a day when Romney collected major headlines for laying out his economic plan, Huckabee aides not only didn't pitch the speech to reporters traveling with the candidate, but they also sent out a news release detailing their economic vision only a few minutes before midnight, guaranteeing it would not make the evening news or appear in most of the next day's newspapers.

Much of the campaign team will now head to Florida, looking to finish in the top three there on Jan. 29. Huckabee will appear today at a fundraiser at the home of Chuck Norris, and people who donate to the campaign will be able to watch the event and go on a virtual tour of Norris's ranch in Navasota, Tex.

Huckabee aides think that despite the loss in South Carolina, they remain strong in the South. "I think we will do well in Florida and on Feb. 5, particularly in the Southern states," Sarah Huckabee said.