In the video below, there is a great explanation by HucksArmy.com regarding the actual math for Mike Huckabee to have an opportunity to win the GOP nomination.

Karl Rove recently stated that Huckabee would need 83% of the remaining delegates - that is true for Huckabee to get the required 1191 to seal the nomination before the convention. However, Huckabee only needs to win 59% of the remaining delegates to block John McCain from clinching before the convention. In this scenario, after the first round of voting, most of the delegates would be released and could vote for any candidate after that.

The last time the Republicans had a brokered convention was in 1976 when Ronald Reagan stayed in the race against Gerald Ford.  Ford ended up with the nomination and lost the general election.  Reagan came back in 1980 and the rest is history.

The political pundits are pretty much assuming that the Democrats will go to a brokered convention because of the virtual tie between Clinton and Obama.  A similar scenario could definitely play out for the Republicans as well, especially since McCain is having great difficulty appealing to the Republican conservative base.

by Dan Davidson, StuckonHuck.com

John McCain and Hillary Clinton are being described this morning as the twin "come-back kids" thanks to their wins in New Hampshire.  Their victories keep the race open for multiple candidates.  Two contests so far have yielded four different winners among Republicans and Democrats combined.

The Huckabee momentum from the Iowa Caucus continued last night in New Hampshire with his strong third place showing.  The headlines will shout out praise for Clinton and McCain, but Huckabee's placing is actually more amazing as he continues to finish much higher than anticipated. 

In this political season it seems a consistent theme has been one of expectation.  The real winners have been those candidates who have exceeded expectations.  No one has done that better than Mike Huckabee.  He surged in the polls just a few weeks before the Iowa contest and ended up winning against Mitt Romney quite convincingly.  After polling just fifth or sixth just a few weeks ago in New Hampshire, Huckabee finished third and ahead of Rudy Giuliani in a state where Rudy actually showed up and did some campaigning.  The losers have been those who have finished below expectation - namely Fred Thompson overall, Romney in Iowa and now New Hampshire and Rudy Giuliani - well about everywhere so far.

John Ellis discusses the Huckabee momentum in an article at RealClearPolitics.com :

Iowa was grand for former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, but New Hampshire was a bonanza. He cast his bread upon the waters there and though he finished a distant third, it was returned manifold. The one thing that Huckabee cannot afford, at this stage of the race, is head-to-head defeat. He needs at least two "strong" candidates in the field while he puts together the pieces of his Republican proletariat coalition.

What New Hampshire delivered last night was a revitalized Sen. John McCain, which makes Michigan a three-way race, which makes Gov. Huckabee's campaign there viable . . . Given a McCain surge and a Romney splurge, it's not hard to imagine a three-way split, with Huckabee doing surprisingly well in the collar counties around Detroit and drawing from the well of his base in the western and northwestern counties. Who knows, he might even win Michigan, which would set up South Carolina for a kill . . .  The net result of all of that will likely be a convincing Huckabee victory, which should solidify Huckabee's lock on the Southern primary states and enable his campaign to poach in border states, in the Midwest and in the Rocky Mountain States.

A strong Huckabee showing in Michigan and a convincing win in South Carolina would set up a showdown with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in Florida, one that Huckabee could afford to lose. Indeed, he might even want to lose it, if only to fatten Giuliani up for his eventual slaughter on the altar of social conservatism. Again, the longer Huckabee faces two "not Huckabee" candidates, all of whom are alien or anathema to the GOP's core Sunbelt/Christian constituencies, the more likely it is he will eventually emerge victorious in the final showdown, wherever that might occur.

And if the results in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary were not bonanza enough, Huckabee got the added boost of Senator Clinton's resurrection from the dead. What better to inflame the passions of Huckabee's more rabid partisans than the renewed prospect of Holy War against the hated Hillary. And what better way could there be to diminish the impact of McCain's revival than a bigger story burying his news.

Mike Huckabee continues to leverage the small funded but growing grassroots support he does have for maximum results.  He has been a master of capitalizing on "free media" always readily available for media interviews.  It seems like the more people that hear him speak candidly about the issues and his vision for America, the more his support grows.  While the New Hampshire race between Clinton / Obama and McCain / Romney has grabbed the headlines in the last several days, Huckabee has used his Iowa bounce to leapfrog into first place in the  national GOP Presidential polls. 

Written by Dan Davidson, StuckonHuck.com

Mike Huckabee gives his victory speech after his win in the Iowa caucus last night.

Governor Mitt Romney is already preparing for a second place finish in Iowa trying to lower expectations.  This wasn't supposed to happen - after over a year of business-like organization, power point presentations and about 8 million dollars, Romney was supposed to easily win in Iowa.

It reminds me of the crazy season in college football - Michigan was supposed to blowout Appalachian State in the easy scheduled opener last fall.  Sports analysts said that it may have been the biggest upset in sports history when Michigan lost.  Imagine if Michigan coaches were to have pre-spun the game by lowering expectations, saying that a loss to App State wouldn't hurt Michigan's national championship hopes.  That would have been ridiculous.

Romney should have won Iowa easily.  Mike Huckabee is the Appalachian State of presidential politics this year. Everyone has underestimated him and written him off.  He was outspent 20-1, but his message has proven to connect with voters more than just money.  App State went on the win the national championship of the lower Division 1 "second tier" of NCAA.  For most of last year Huckabee was considered a "second tier" candidate.  Not any more - don't underestimate Huckabee this year.

Read excerpts from an article in Bloomberg written by Margaret Carlson about Romney's pre-spin of the Iowa caucus:

Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Candidates who don't want to get caught coveting what they aren't going to get have been spinning away prior to today's Iowa vote. Those who bet it all on Iowa are now saying that winning there doesn't mean so much after all.

If you're Mitt Romney and just spent the children's inheritance on 30-second ads and a ground organization that assigns almost every voter his own precinct captain, it has to be a blow if the near-penniless Mike Huckabee beats you.

``There's no `have to win' in Iowa,'' Romney, who oversaw the 2002 Winter Olympics, told ABC television this week. ``Either the gold or the silver'' would do.

How about just a commemorative plaque? Romney's done everything but run his grandmother over with a John Deere tractor to woo Iowans. Forget his claim to have been a hunter, or the endorsement of the National Rifle Association that never happened, or the observation that his son was like a soldier in Iraq for driving an SUV all over Iowa. They're within the margin of forgettable exaggerations.

He's changed everything but his hair color. His last-minute attack on Senator John McCain for being soft on immigration was belied by his earlier statement supporting a path to citizenship for illegals and praising McCain's proposal as ``reasonable.''

Fooling No One - Romney looks like the jut-jawed Ward Cleaver, but he acts like Eddie Haskell, the unctuous TV teenager whose syrupy flattery fooled no one. After observing the candidate for months, Hartford Courant editorial writer Bill Curry says he ``wouldn't believe Romney if he were telling me his blood type while lying on an operating table.''