Huckabee Heads to N.H. to Win Converts

CONCORD, N.H., Jan. 4, 2008 — -- Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was several thousand feet in the air Thursday evening when he learned he'd officially won the Iowa caucuses.

His campaign had chartered a plane to quickly fly from Des Moines to Waterloo for a quick visit to a Republican precinct. Because there was so much traffic around the precinct due to high voter turnout, the trip took longer than expected. On the flight back, Huckabee, his wife, Janet, and their team were trying to read their BlackBerries as e-mails poured in with updates.

Early precincts showed him in the lead, but Huckabee urged caution. His wife's BlackBerry service was better than his so Huckabee's was to a degree out of the loop.

"Everything was basically happening while we were in the air from Waterloo back to Des Moines so I'm the last guy in the whole of America to know that we had won the caucus," Huckabee told reporters early this morning.

At one point, as his charter flight got closer to Des Moines Airport, "the BlackBerries just started lighting up," he recalled. Networks began calling the race for him, The Associated Press called it, "and I'm thinking, ya know, we got a pretty good consensus going here."

At that point, recalled Huckabee's campaign press secretary Alice Stewart, Huckabee calmly said, smiling, "I guess we won."

He did indeed, decidedly defeating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 34 percent to 25 percent, propelled by little more than his message and likability, and the support of thousands of his fellow evangelicals, who comprised 60 percent of the GOP caucus goers.

"What is happening tonight here in Iowa is going to start, really, a prairie fire of new hope and zeal," the Baptist minister told cheering supporters gathered in a ballroom at the Des Moines Embassy Suites. "Tonight what we have seen is a new day in American politics. … It starts here in Iowa, but it doesn't end here. It goes all the way through the other states and ends at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave."

Huckabee's views against abortion rights and same-sex marriage resonated with the state's social conservatives, many of whom identified with Huckabee's humble roots more so than the multimillionaire Mormon.