John McCain may have managed last night to make his path to the nomination a mathematical lock, but he didn’t do it before Mike Huckabee once more put a vicious scare into the septuagenarian senator: despite being all but broke and trailing by huge margins in delegates, the evangelical bass virtuoso managed to take 41% of the vote in Virginia last night.

The McCain camp? Not amused.

“He now needs 950 delegates to secure the required 1,191,” Davis writes of Huckabee in the fit-for-public-consumption document. “But in the remaining contests there are only 774 delegates available. He would need to win 123% of remaining delegates.”…

“For John McCain to reach the threshold of 1,191 delegates needed to secure the nomination, he needs to win roughly 35% of the 774 remaining delegates,” Davis writes. “For Governor Huckabee to reach the 1,191 delegate threshold, he needs an additional 950 delegates — more than remain available in future contests.”

“With only 774 delegates left on the table after tonight, Governor Huckabee cannot win the Republican nomination for president.”

So, assuming Huckabee doesn’t take the required 123% of remaining delegates (the man doesn’t deal in math, people, he deals in miracles), what does Huck hope to achieve by staying in the race?

It would seem that his path to the Vice Presidency can’t be helped by continuing to remind the country that GOP voters aren’t particularly thrilled with John McCain. However, there’s still a senate race going on in Arkansas this fall, and the filing deadline appears to be over three weeks away. Raising his profile with this late surge probably doesn’t hurt his popularity in Arkansas, and with a big southern evangelical base to draw money and support from, the chances of Senator Huckabee would see more likely.

I went over to the National Review Online to try to clarify the situation with the GOP. Nothing about Huckabee, but ultra-conservative columnist John Derbyshire’s wife seems to have a thing for Obama.

Neat.