Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is hoping his victories in Kansas and Louisiana are a sign of things to come in Tuesday's presidential primaries in Virginia and Maryland. On Saturday, Huckabee won all 36 delegates at stake in Kansas and narrowly held on to win Louisiana's primary. But he trails Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, in the overall race for delegates. Some say he should even step aside as a way to help the GOP maintain resources for the general election. But Huckabee described such talk Sunday as "total nonsense." "The Democrats haven't settled their nominee either, so for us to suddenly act like we have to all step aside and have a coronation instead of an election, that's the antithesis of everything Republicans are supposed to believe," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press.""We believe competition breeds excellence and the lack of it breeds mediocrity."

Huckabee said even he was surprised by the results in Kansas and Louisiana. He also said he was not ready to concede Washington state, Saturday's third contest, where McCain was declared the winner of the state's caucuses.

"We're looking at some legal issues. We're not ready to concede that one," Huckabee said, without going into specifics.

Huckabee has vowed to stay in the race until a candidate has earned 1,191 delegates, the number needed to win the nomination. He continued to deflect talk of interest in being McCain's choice for vice president.

"I'm not going to be asked. I think it's pretty evident that there would be a whole lot of people on the list long, long before me, and one of them would say 'yes,'" Huckabee said.

Told that McCain was heavily favored to win the primaries in Maryland and Virginia on Tuesday, Huckabee said he would do better than expected.

"I think we'll get a nice little bump out of what happened in Kansas," Huckabee said.

Written By KEVIN FREKING