Rivals No More: McCain And Huckabee Unite

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. John McCain, on the last leg of this week’s tour of economically struggling regions, was campaigning alongside former rival Mike Huckabee on Friday.

The two were in Huckabee territory: his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas.

Former Baptist minister Huckabee dropped out of the GOP presidential primary race March 4 after McCain swept contests in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, giving the Arizona senator the delegates needed to claim the party’s nomination in September.

At a news conference in Little Rock, Huckabee pledged his support for his one-time rival.

“I believe that Arkansas will not only support Sen. McCain but will help him to become the next president of the United States. And I certainly pledge my every effort to help do that,” he said.

Huckabee said one of the “remarkable things” about McCain is that he’s “going out to places across the country that aren’t on the front pages but ought to be.”

McCain later said that Huckabee “can be a great asset to our campaign.”

Earlier, on board McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” bus, Huckabee addressed a controversy that is plaguing Sen. Barack Obama, concerning comments by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

He said it would be “a little bit presumptuous to ever assume that just because the pastor says something on the pulpit that everyone in the pew agrees with it. That’s rarely the case.”

In Wright’s first television interview since clips of his sermons circulated on the Internet, Obama’s former pastor says his words were unfairly taken out of context for “devious reasons.”

In an interview airing on PBS on Friday, Wright expressed frustration with the way his sermons had been portrayed in the media and by critics of Obama’s White House bid.

“I felt it was unfair,” he told Bill Moyers, according to released excerpts. “I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt that those who were doing that were doing it for some very devious reasons.”

Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, McCain, Huckabee and their wives stopped at the Whole Hog BBQ restaurant in Little Rock.

The four toured the kitchen, ordered sandwiches and later jokingly fought over who was going to pay the bill. Huckabee paid with a credit card, and McCain gave a $40 tip.

Pundits have long placed the former Arkansas governor on McCain’s vice presidential short list, and Friday’s stop is likely to fuel still more speculation.

Huckabee still harbors presidential hopes of his own; he recently said he would consider another White House run in 2012, depending on the circumstances.

On Thursday, The Associated Press reported that Huckabee will publish a book two weeks after the November general election, detailing his failed run for the White House and his views on the future of the Republican Party.

Last week, he launched HuckPAC, a political action committee that will promote those views and financially support candidates who share them.

Thursday night in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, McCain reiterated his criticism of the Bush administration over its handling of Hurricane Katrina, calling its response to the storm “a series of failures that shook the confidence of Americans in their government as much as any event in recent memory.”

McCain detailed Bush’s mistakes, including the president’s decision to fly over the disaster rather than stop for a tour.

Bush endorsed McCain for president the day after the GOP nomination was sealed in March. McCain said then that he wanted Bush at his side as much as possible on the campaign trail.

But McCain also told a group of business leaders that Katrina’s “incompetence of leadership didn’t end with the rescue efforts.”

“With many thousands of lives in the balance, across 90,000 square miles of misery, there was a failure of foresight, a failure of planning, a failure in execution and a failure in follow-up,” he said.

McCain praised the state’s new governor, Bobby Jindal, who also has been mentioned as an entry on McCain’s vice presidential short list.

The Arizona senator was in New Orleans on Thursday on a tour through some Democratic strongholds in economically struggling states.

He made stops this week in Selma, Alabama; Youngstown, Ohio; and Inez, Kentucky.

Early Thursday, McCain toured New Orleans’ 9th Ward, the neighborhood hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina, and discussed the tough times ahead for the poverty-stricken area.

We … know that there’s enormous challenges ahead,” McCain said. “Americans have not forgotten New Orleans.”

McCain and his wife, Cindy, along with Jindal, spent about 20 minutes walking through the Lower 9th, stopping at a house being rebuilt by about a dozen volunteers from DeutscheBank in New York.

“I’m proud to be in your company. You’re what America’s all about,” McCain told them .

One official took issue with McCain’s behavior after Katrina. In a statement issued Thursday, Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, blasted him for “hiding” from votes against Katrina legislation, like unemployment assistance and emergency health care for survivors.

McCain responded by saying that the bills were partisan and pork-laden and that the way to help is for Washington to fix its priorities.