Mike Huckabee announced tonight on his Fox show that he’s not running for president in 2012.
At the very end of his eponymous Fox News show, Huckabee said that, despite all the “signs and signals” pointing him toward a run, he decided this week not to launch a campaign.
“All the factors say ‘go,’ but my heart says ‘no’ and that’s the decision I’ve made,” Huckabee said. “And in it, I’ve finally found some resolution.”
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“Under the best of circumstances, being president is a job that takes one to the limit of his or her human capacity. For me, to do it apart from the inner confidence that I was undertaking it with God’s full blessing is simply unthinkable,” he said.
Huckabee knows he can’t win, plus he’s perfectly happy making money from his Fox show. Running for president would cut into that revenue stream.
What does this mean for the 2012 GOP race? I see Pawlenty as the big winner here. Romney has been savaged from his own side for his health care speech. That leaves Pawlenty as the establishment favorite, though he’s probably sweating bullets ath the prospect of Mitch Daniels possibly entering the race.