A traveler snapped this shot today of Janet and Mike Huckabee at the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport after they’d arrived in town on a Delta flight from Atlanta (in first class, a traveler on the plane said)

The photo is evocative of the loneliness of the long-distance campaigner, particularly one well down the list in polling. No cheering crowds. No entourage. The candidate, with cane after recent knee surgery, pulling his own bag. Air Trump it’s not.

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This is the morning after Huckabee’s appearance in the JV debate last night in Las Vegas. His determined supporters in Christosphere still hope for an Iowa miracle like 2008, when Huckabee trailed in the polls 46 days out but won the caucuses. As several have noted, he didn’t win many votes with any young people watching last night with his crack about college kids as part of an answer defending his idea to send U.S. troops in to Syria.


“All over America I hear young people say, ‘Would you tell me what you’re gonna do? Would you get me free college? Would you make sure that I can have medical marijuana?'” Huckabee said. “You know what I think we oughta tell young people, ‘We aren’t gonna give you anything! We’re gonna give you the opportunity to get off your butt and go serve your country and secure your freedom because if you don’t, nobody else is.'”

Surely to goodness he’s not talking about a draft.

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PS — Are rats scurrying off the ship? Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin was on The Buzz this morning. Asked about the race, he said he was still a supporter of Huckabee. But he also said, more or less, that he’d make some on the home team unhappy by saying it was time for several — both at the kiddie table debate and even on the main stage last night — to recognize the futility of their efforts and clear the field. I was reminded again of the folly of moving the Arkansas primary up to March 1 to benefit Huckabee’s supposed SEC Sweep. 

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