One final bleat for attention, a finger in the eye of the party that’s about to cross him by nominating someone not to his liking and a last-ditch bid to embarrass McCain by mobilizing evangelicals into giving Huck an upset victory somewhere next week. To fully appreciate this you have to listen to the snippet of audio from Dennis Prager in the update to this post from two days ago. He doesn’t endorse in primaries, he says, because it’s up to the people to separate the gold from the dross. Oh, wait — Mitt Romney’s dropped out? Really? Well, that’s entirely different, then!

The “Christian leaders” versus Maverick. Okay then. Second look at McCain.

James Dobson, one of the nation’s most prominent evangelical Christian leaders, is about to endorse former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, The Associated Press has learned.

Dobson, founder of Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Focus on the Family, talked to the GOP presidential hopeful Thursday and later was to release a statement explaining his choice, said Gary Schneeberger, a spokesman for Dobson.

Huckabee had long sought Dobson’s endorsement, believing he is the best fit to advance Dobson’s conservative, moral worldview.

Exit question: What’s Huckabee’s game here? He’d need to win every remaining primary with something like 60% of the vote to overtake McCain. Is he just banking this as yet another piece of social-con cred for his next run in 2011? Or is it a carrot to wave at McCain to remind him that he’d bring along plenty of red-state voters as part of the ticket?

Update: Actually, try this exit question on for size instead: Third-party run … by Dobson? Why not? His aim all along has been to prove to the GOP how much they need him and evangelicals. What better way to do that after Huck’s out than by getting in and taking a few million members of the base with him?