Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is going to the courts, if need be, to get a full recount of GOP voting in the Washington state caucuses on Saturday.  The Associated Press is reporting:

The former Arkansas governor’s campaign argues that [Washington] state party Chairman Luke Esser prematurely called the race for McCain Saturday night after 87 percent of the vote was counted.

“It’s a major exercise, but Luke Esser owes the people of Washington nothing less,” Huckabee adviser Jim Pinkerton said today.

Pinkerton said the campaign is asking Esser to retract the statement that McCain won. The campaign also wants either a recount or audit or inventory of what happened.

Esser isn’t having any of it, refusing to do a recount until the party finishes a count.

The folks at liberal-minded talkingpointsmemo are having a field day with all of this, referring to Snohomish County as Hazzard County and dubbing Luke Esser to be “Boss Esser.”

That’s a bit over the top.  But as head of a party whose candidate lost the 2004 governor’s election by 129 votes, Esser should have been more careful to emphasize loudly that the counting was only finished for Saturday night, not for all time.  Now the party will get to count twice — giving Republicans that old 2004 feeling again.