Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee speaks with CNN's Wolf Blitzer about why he's still in the race.

BLITZER: Welcome back to the CNN Election Center.

I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting.

Let's go live right now to the winner of the Kansas Republican caucus. The former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, is joining us now.

Governor, thanks very much for coming in.

First of all, congratulations on your very impressive win today in Kansas.

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, thank you, Wolf.

There's a big smile on my face for a reason. We are pretty proud and grateful for the people of Kansas. We had a big day today. I don't think anybody was predicting us to win, and certainly not for the margin. And we were stunned by the margin ourselves.

BLITZER: Sixty percent for Mike Huckabee, 24 percent for John McCain.

Why do you think you crushed him in this reddest of red states?

HUCKABEE: You know, we were both there, we both had a shot at it. He had both United States senators out there endorsing him and speaking for him yesterday. It looked like it would be a pretty tough environment for us.

But I'll tell you what's happening. People don't want to be told who their president is going to be. And in the Republican Party, people want to make a choice. They don't want somebody else making that decision for them.

And they're tired of hearing somebody say, oh, well he's the presumptive nominee, why doesn't everybody just clear the field? And what we're seeing is there's an energy in our campaign, frankly, Wolf, that we haven't seen in months.

We've raised more money online in a day than we normally would raise in a month. We have seen extraordinary traffic to mikehuckabee.com, the likes of which we just aren't used to. We've also had an enormous amount of volunteers show up at things.

We were in Maryland today at a rally. We had three times the number of people that we thought we could possibly get at noon at the University of Maryland.

So, there's something going on out there, and it's called an election.

BLITZER: All right. Will this win in Kansas change your strategy at all in the coming days and weeks?

HUCKABEE: Well, not really. I mean, our strategy has been, let's go head to head wherever we can, because we've always felt that once the field narrowed and people had a clear choice, that we would be in a real position to start winning greater numbers of delegates.

When the votes of many of the conservatives were split all over the place, it obviously made it a little bit more difficult. But when the race is focussed and you only have a couple of candidates and people are starting to really look at where we stand and differences -- you know, not maybe hostile differences, but differences -- I think that what you're going to continue to see is that this is a real race despite what people may have thought about it middle of last week.

BLITZER: Does it bother you that in Kansas, at least, you humiliated John McCain and might embarrass him in other states down the road? Is that a problem going into this contest against the Democrats, that the front-runner, the Republican front-runner, could be embarrassed by you?

HUCKABEE: Well, no. I mean, I could argue that he embarrassed me in Florida, or that he embarrassed me in California. I mean, that's what an election is all about. It gives people a choice and an option. Elections are about contests.

You know, I had a reporter ask me today, should I just step aside for the good of the party? I said, "I'll tell you what's good for the party. It's competition."

We are always the party that said that competition is the key to excellence. And that's true in the private business market. If you have competition, then you create excellence. If you have the lack of competition, you end up with mediocrity.

The idea that we're going to be a better party without any type of election process is utter nonsense and about the most non-Republican idea I've ever heard.

BLITZER: What is the biggest issue that separates you from John McCain?

HUCKABEE: I think the key issues are that I support the human life amendment, that I don't support human embryonic stem-cell research. That I didn't agree with McCain/Feingold Campaign Finance Act, and immigration. We have differences of opinion on how we ought to handle that.

Those are the fundamental differences. And I think there are other maybe nuances.

But, you know, one of the things that I find interesting, the two most civil campaigns of the Republican primary are the ones still on their feet. And I do think that says something about both the senator's campaign and ours. It looks like Republicans really are responding to a more message-driven and positive campaign.

I think that's good for our party. I'd like to say, I think it's good for America.

BLITZER: I know you've said you didn't major in math when you were in college, you majored in miracles...

HUCKABEE: Yes.

BLITZER: ... which is an excellent line, by the way.

You need 1,191 delegates at the Republican convention in St. Paul to be the Republican presidential nominee. Now, a lot of experts in math have done the math. They say there's no way you're going to get that, but there is theoretically a way you could prevent John McCain from getting 1,191 delegates.

And if on the first round he doesn't have that, it would go to the second round. Then all bets are off because the pledge delegates could vote for whoever they wanted.

Is that your strategy, to try to prevent him from getting 1,191 delegates going up to the convention in St. Paul?

HUCKABEE: Wolf, we're not smart enough to think that far down the road. We're trying to get through Kansas and Washington, Louisiana and then Virginia, and Maryland and the District of Columbia next Tuesday. And we'll start from there.

Our strategy has always been, let's stay in this game, let's keep gas in the tank and air in the tires until somebody gets 1191. And we're still there.

And, you know, we're not going to pretend that we know exactly how it's going to play out. I think everybody that has predicted how it's going to play out, one thing about it they're consistent in, they've all been wrong.

Nobody would have predicted where this race would be today even a month ago, certainly not five, six months ago. So when people are telling me what the math is and how it's going to work out, I'm saying, OK, you've been 100 percent wrong so far, why on earth are we going to believe that you've suddenly got it all figured out?

BLITZER: March 4th is an important contest in Texas, which is a big state. A lot of Republican delegates at stake there.

The Republican governor, Rick Perry, urged you to drop out of the contest now. How does that make you feel, when you hear the governor of Texas say to you, a former governor of Arkansas, not very far away...

HUCKABEE: Yes.

BLITZER: ... you know what, it's over for you Governor Huckabee, get out of this contest? HUCKABEE: It just makes me more motivated to go win. You know, the fact is he first endorsed Rudy Giuliani. Rudy's out of the race. Then he jumped on John McCain's team. Why would I really want to follow the advice of somebody who is supporting two other candidates instead of me?

So here's what I would say -- I've got a lot of strong support in Texas. I'll take Chuck Norris any day. Chuck's a Texan. I'll take his support and his wife, Gena's. And we're going to win Texas.

We've got great, great organization building there, and that's going to be a big state for us. And I don't know if you saw it, but the other night on "The Colbert Report," I took the state of Texas on an air hockey table. That was a prediction of things to come.

BLITZER: And you're saying Chuck Norris can take down Rick Perry? Is that what you're saying?

HUCKABEE: I would think even Rick Perry might acknowledge that.

But the point is, I'm not going to sit around and let people who don't support me dictate the direction of my campaign. Why would I do that? That would be insane.

Here's what I will tell you, Wolf -- not one supporter of mine, not one endorser of mine has come to me, publicly or privately, and said, you know, Mike, I really think it's time for you to get out. You know what they've done? They've gone to our Web site and they have lit it up with contributions.

Our people are going crazy. They're coming to our rallies, they're fired up. And they're saying, don't get out.

That's the message I'm getting from the people who support me. And so, I'm going to listen to those folks. They're the ones who got me this far. And until they tell me it's over, we're in this thing.

BLITZER: Governor Huckabee, congratulations once again.

Thanks very much for joining us.

HUCKABEE: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: We'll see you out on the campaign trail.

HUCKABEE: Bye-bye.