According to him, Florida isn’t out of play, though he says it as he’s leaving the state to head to Atlanta 🙂
“I don’t want to abandon Florida yet,” Huckabee told reporters Monday on a late-night flight from Orlando to Atlanta, where he planned to campaign Tuesday. “We have not come to the conclusion that Florida is out of play.”
He said his campaign will evaluate the Florida situation day by day. Meanwhile, he said, he will find time to campaign in several other southern states holding primaries on Feb. 5.
“We really need to conserve as much as we can” for TV and radio ads in those states, Huckabee said in a 36-minute news conference at the back of his press charter. He said he is airing no ads in Florida, one of the nation’s largest and costliest states for campaigns.
[…]
Huckabee made a brief appearance in Orlando on Monday, and planned a late-afternoon visit to Gainesville on Tuesday. Meanwhile, he campaigned in Atlanta on Monday and Tuesday, and planned to spend much of Wednesday in Little Rock, doing long-delayed chores such as seeing his eye doctor.
“We’ll be in Florida everyday this week,” Huckabee said. But he will also find time to campaign in Georgia and other states that could include Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma, he said. They are among the 24 states holding primaries on Feb. 5, and they include many social conservatives and evangelical Christians who are the mainstay of his campaign.
He’s also stopped arranging planes for the press since he’s getting less attention now that’s he lost SC:
As of Tuesday, the Huckabee campaign stopped arranging planes, vans, meals, hotel reservations and other means of helping national news organizations cover his events. News outlets pay for their travel, but campaigns can lose money if many seats go vacant.
“A 50-seat plane for 15 people doesn’t make sense,” Huckabee said, noting that his press coverage has thinned since his Iowa caucus victory was followed by losses to Arizona Sen. John McCain in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
(via)