Statement by Governor Mike Huckabee: "Underestimated"

Team,

As a poor kid growing up in south Arkansas, the odds were always against me, so hard work is all I know.

Frankly, if the odds aren't against me, I usually look around and ask myself am I in the right place?

So when the media tries to paint this final sprint as a race between two candidates, or when the media began restricting the number of people on the debate stage, I laughed and thought I've seen this story before.

When I ran for office in Arkansas, I was underestimated every time. When I fought the most Democrat legislature in the country and passed big conservative reforms, the local press and quite a few politicians in my own party, said I could never do it. I did.

I was underestimated again when I took on entrenched corruption in my state and put corrupt politicians in jail. In Bill Clinton's Arkansas, well that just wasn't done. The Democrat party was a well-oiled machine and they had been running the state for decades!

I am writing all of this to you now, because I don't buy the line of bull the media is shoveling down voters' throats in Iowa and elsewhere. I was told I couldn't win the Iowa caucus in 2008 because I was outspent and out maneuvered by the big Washington campaigns of my rivals. Well I won and I bet if I asked Rick Santorum he'd say the same thing about his 2012 caucus win in Iowa.

That's why I'm confident that with God's help and the help of American people we can mount a comeback in Iowa, win the presidency and finally have real conservative leadership that puts Americans first.

Remember the media has a short memory and a bad habit of trying to pick winners and losers. So hang in there and get ready for a big fight. Because we are going to shock the pundits on February 1 and ride our momentum all of the way to the White House!