Scene: a Motel 6. MIKE HUCKABEE, whose face is never seen, sits on a bed watching MSNBC. He is drinking a Diet Coke from the can. Suddenly his BlackBerry chirps. He answers.

HUCKABEE. Hello?

MAN'S VOICE. Hi, Mike. It's Karl Rove.

HUCKABEE. Oh, wow. Hi, Karl!

MAN'S VOICE. Listen, man, we need to talk. You have two choices.

HUCKABEE. What do you mean, Karl?

MAN'S VOICE. You can fight on to the convention. I know people have a lot of buyers' remorse about McCain right now. Especially conservatives--

HUCKABEE. Yeah!

MAN'S VOICE. Let me finish. You've got a lot of support, Mike. I respect that. But consider that if you take this thing down the pike, you're still a long shot to numerically win the nomination, and you probably won't.

HUCKABEE. Yeah, we've kind of thought of that.

MAN'S VOICE. Really, don't cut me off.

HUCKABEE. I thought you were fini--

MAN'S VOICE. So all you'll do is bleed our nominee. And that's bad, Mike. That's bad for you. That'll mean that your career is done. Me and my friends, we remember shit like that. You what I'm capable of.

HUCKABEE. Um.

MAN'S VOICE. But there's another choice, Mike. you can join the ticket.

HUCKABEE. Well, look, we've thought --

MAN'S VOICE. No, listen to me for a second, Mike. you join the ticket. Maybe you guys win. McCain's an old man. He probably won't run for a second term. In fact, maybe I call John next and remind him.

HUCKABEE. Huh.

MAN'S VOICE. Yeah. And if you guys lose? My guys will remember that you took one for the team. And you run in 2012. We'll be there for you. We remember stuff like this too.

HUCKABEE. Um.

MAN'S VOICE. Yeah. Think it over. I'm-a holler at you.

HUCKABEE. One.

Lights.