WAUKESHA - Brushing off calls from Republican leaders and political pundits for him to bow out of the presidential race Wednesday, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told a crowd of more than 500 supporters that doing so now would be telling Wisconsinites "your votes don’t matter."

"As I said to folks last week, I didn’t major in math, I majored in miracles in college," Huckabee said. "But here’s the math I do know: No one has yet received 1,191 delegates, and until that happens, we don’t have a nominee."

The rally at Country Springs Hotel came on a day when Sen. John McCain’s campaign released a memo detailing the mathematical hurdles facing Huckabee in the race for the Republican nomination. McCain was in Washington D.C., on Wednesday and is expected in Milwaukee Friday.

Huckabee assured supporters that he would stay the course in coming months, and, if necessary, would "settle it at the (Republican National) Convention like it used to be done in the old days," he said.

"I’ll take my chances there like anybody else," Huckabee said.

In his half-hour speech, Huckabee sought to distinguish himself from McCain as well as Democratic presidential hopefuls Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, by touting his experience as both a former Arkansas governor and lieutenant governor, roles he likened to being an "executive" rather than a "legislator."

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