Mike Huckabee to Have Knee Surgery Over Thanksgiving Holiday
The GOP candidate says the surgery won't affect his campaign schedule.
— -- Most presidential candidates are looking forward to the Thanksgiving holiday as a welcome break from the campaign trail. For Mike Huckabee, it's a chance to get knee surgery without missing any campaign events.
"About two weeks ago, I was walking through an airport in South Carolina, heard this loud pop, and everybody around me said what was that? I said that was my knee," Huckabee told employees at C&C Machining in Centerville, Iowa, during a campaign stop last week.
Huckabee joked with workers that he was at their factory to have a new cane made, acknowledging the injury that has forced him to hobble on the campaign trail.
"I’ve got bone chips floating around in there that are stabbing me all over the place so that’s got to get fixed," Huckabee said. The outpatient surgery will be performed Wednesday, and Huckabee said the surgery won't affect his campaign schedule.
"I’m not going to miss a single campaign event so to all my opponents out there, you’re not going to get an advantage just because I’m laid low," Huckabee told ABC News.
The former Arkansas governor has been struggling in the polls. He was relegated to the undercard debate on Fox Business earlier this month in Milwaukee, the first time that Huckabee hadn't appeared on the main stage. In the Quinnipiac University poll of likely Republican Caucus-goers released Tuesday, Mike Huckabee is tied in 8th place with Chris Christie and Rick Santorum at 2 percent.
Huckabee told ABC that he won't be frying the Thanksgiving turkey this year -- his son will handle that. But, he hopes to be back on the campaign trail early next week.
"No reason to feel sorry for me. I shall live through this, I’m pretty sure," Huckabee joked.