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Huckabee, Arkansas Dems agree Clinton should fight on Thursday, May 8, 2008 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Calls for Sen. Hillary Clinton to end her White House bid sounded plenty familiar to Mike Huckabee on Wednesday. "I know what it's like to hear that from a lot of people," said Huckabee, who fought off pressure to drop out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination earlier this year. "When her supporters are ready for her to quit, they'll tell her, but she owes it to them to give them the best fight she's got," the former Arkansas governor said. "As long as she and they think there's a remote possibility she can win it, I think she has every right to stay in it." In Washington to speak to a health-care conference on Wednesday, Huckabee said Clinton's chances are "getting more remote every day." Republicans would rejoice over any scenario that gives Clinton the nomination, Huckabee said, because that would signal strife within the Democratic party. "We would be celebrating," Huckabee said. "All of us would qualify to be on 'Dancing with the Stars,' without lessons." Huckabee commented the day after Clinton decisively lost North Carolina's presidential primary and won Indiana, but only by a narrow margin. Clinton vowed Wednesday to remain in the race despite growing evidence that Sen. Barack Obama has all but wrapped up the Democratic nomination. Some Democrats and analysts have demanded she step aside. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., defended her party and its protracted presidential race. She said Democrats will hopefully coalesce in support of one candidate by next month. "At the end of June, hopefully, we're going to bind our wounds and come together and be one," said Lincoln, who with other Democrats in the Arkansas congressional delegation hosted a fundraiser for Clinton on Wednesday evening. The situations faced by the two former residents of the Arkansas Governor's Mansion are significantly different. Unlike with Huckabee in February, Clinton still has a chance at the nomination. Unpledged superdelegates - party leaders and officials who vote at the convention - could see her as more electable than Obama and swing her way. Or Democrats could accept delegates from Florida and Michigan, both states won by Clinton. Those states had been stripped of their convention delegates as punishment for setting their primaries earlier than party rules allowed. Huckabee was mathematically out of contention for the GOP nod for weeks before he left the race. He even spoofed his predicament on "Saturday Night Live." Huckabee said the calls to end his bid came from opponents, and Clinton is hearing the same type of criticism now. No Democrat in the state delegation said Clinton should give up. The group hosted its $500-per-person "dessert reception" fundraiser with the former Arkansas first lady at a stately Washington hotel. "I would tell her just to keep going at it just as hard as she can," said Rep. Marion Berry, D-Gillett. "I think it would be unplugging the system before we're through," Berry said. "We're just in, I think, the last quarter of this primary." The Democratic nomination remains up for grabs as long as the Florida and Michigan issue remains unsettled, said Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark. "I don't know how that gets resolved, but I think before you can really make a final determination on the nominee here, you need to make sure Florida and Michigan are treated fairly in the process," Pryor said. |
