Republican Mike
Huckabee said Tuesday his presidential campaign is facing
financial difficulties, with top advisers working without
pay and some aides quitting.
The former
Arkansas governor promised to remain in the race through
next Tuesday's Florida primary, telling about 50
people, mostly University of Florida fraternity
members: ''We are taking a look at everything daily.
But we will be here every day in Florida until next week.''
Huckabee planned
to attend a private fund-raiser.
In an interview
earlier Tuesday in Atlanta, adviser Ed Rollins said top
advisers are working without pay and some have left.
''Most people are
staying on,'' but a few have departed, Rollins said.
''A number of people, including myself,'' have agreed to
forgo their pay to spend as much as possible on
television ads in vital states.
Campaign
contributions continue to come in, he said. But he
acknowledged that Huckabee is stretched thin as he
tries to compete in Florida's primary and many of the
two dozen states holding contests February 5.
Huckabee's
campaign has stopped arranging charter flights, hotel
reservations, and other means of helping journalists keep up
with his movements. News organizations pay their own
expenses, but empty seats on charter planes were
costing the campaign money.
''We are running
our campaign in a very frugal manner,'' Huckabee said.
''We have operated in the black. If we don't have it, we
don't expend it.''
Rollins said the
campaign plans to run some ads on cable stations in
Florida, but it cannot afford broadcast rates. Huckabee is
splitting time between Florida, Georgia, and Arkansas
this week.
One of Huckabee's
rivals, Rudy Giuliani, has acknowledged that about a
dozen of his senior campaign workers were forgoing their
January paychecks in hopes of stretching out money.
Huckabee spoke at
an antiabortion rally Tuesday on the grounds of the
Georgia capitol before heading to Gainesville, without the
usual press contingent.
Legalized
abortion is ''a national nightmare that needs to end soon,''
Huckabee told several hundred people huddled under umbrellas
in a chilly drizzle. America's treatment of the
unborn, he said, ''will define us for the future.''
The remarks coincided with the 35th anniversary of the
Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling that a woman
has a constitutional right to have an abortion.
Huckabee, an
ordained Baptist minister, favors constitutional amendments
to outlaw abortion and same-sex marriage. He counts heavily
on social conservatives and evangelical Christians,
but he finished second to McCain in South Carolina on
Saturday. (Ron Word, AP)
