In a stunning move yesterday, Gov. Mitt Romney withdrew from the 2008 Presidential Race. With head held high, he addressed his supporters to explain his reasons why:
Friday, February 8, 2008
Romney bows out ...
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13 comments:
Classy move. He could have gone on, spending money, getting some delegates, but ultimately losing, and weakening the party. Unlike Rush, Gov Romney seems to care about the republican party and the country.
Romney's big mistake was trying to become the ultimate conservative choice. It never rang true. His impressive record as Governor of Massachusetts was moderate, and anybody with eyes could see that. Romey should have continued to run in his original form, the "can-do" CEO who saved the olympics and reduced the tax burden in Massachusetts. This will not be an election dominated by the usual social issues dear to conservatives. It will be the economy and the war.
I agree with Dryfly's assessment.
I believe the Republican party MAY be going through a period of moving more to the middle as demonstrated by McCain's vote getting ability vs any of the others who proclaimed they were the "real" Conservative candidate. It is also a repudiation against the Talk Radio pundits such as Rush and Hannity who are realizing their voices carry so little weight with the overall election population. They should have realized this in the last election. They are now becoming dividers of the Republican party and don't seem to care.
Romney may have his day down the road, but likely McCain will not choose him as a running mate as he probably needs to find a more Conservative mate to reel in the more right wing voters. He is a smart politican and likely understands that.
The likelihood, however, that the Republicans win the General is appearing slim however given a couple of things: 1) people appear to want an change and he seems more like the status quo 2) the tremendous turnout in the Primaries for the Democrats. If the Democrats can keep the infighting down between Obama and Clinton my guess is they will get it. Obams has the momentum at the moment and could be their nominee. It is too close to call at this moment.
The downside of a Democrat winning the Presidency, however, seems of be the old adage that caught the Republicans - " Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely". Too much power in just one party seems to be its ultimate downfall.
Yaw-w-w-w-w-w-n-n-n-n-n. . .
The Republicans are dead in the water after the fiasco of the last 7 years and they know it.
The chances of a Republican winning the 08 election right now are about 1 in 5 at best. None of their candidates have any true substance to them. McCain doesn't resonate with the voters. His age alone means the bulk of the 18 to 40 crowd won't even look at him.
Electors DO want change, and age doesn't equate with change ("renewed excitement in the process") in simple biological reaction. Even the McCain/Romney ticket won't stand a chance.
Of course, if the gasoline prices
suddenly went back to 2002 levels the Republicans would regain followers.
People are dumb as hell.
Re the new blog: will there be a demand for word verification every time we post here???
Is it set up to remember previous users?
Re the new blog: will there be a demand for word verification every time we post here???
Is it set up to remember previous users?
Yes, you'll have to do the word verification (CAPTCHA) thing every time (it's an option that can be turned off, but leaving it on makes it harder for automated spam "bots" to leave junk in the comments section).
No, it won't remember previous users. This version of the blog runs off of Google's Blogger.com service. If you have a GMail (or AOL, WordPress.com, OpenID, etc.) account you can use that. Just pick your preferred option in the "Sign-in using" dropdown menu.
I'm not working for Gary on this, BTW—I just have some experience with Blogger.com blogs. I ran my own blog on their service before switching to WordPress two years ago. :)
To me it really doesn't matter who is in or out. I see only one candidate that will abide by the constitution, but Dr. Paul doesn't stand a chance.
The rest of these yahoos are self serving, establishment, more government, less freedom candidates.
This is the video link I am reposting from the previous blog which shows how two of Fox News reporters were handled when they tried to air a show unfavorable to corporate sponsors . . . the fair and balanced deduction from this example is that this is SOP for Fox:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWcqxrQgcc&NR=1
[Too bad we don't have administrative posting ability or I'd put it up.
I might change my screen name to 'Anonymous,' it would be more ... uhhh . . . egalitarian perhaps]
I have to agree that the chances of the Republicans winning the November election are not very good. I'm afraid they are going through an identity crises not knowing whether they are conservative or liberal. They get elected espousing conservative principles, smaller government, lower taxes, etc. and then run for re-election throwing money around just like the democrats. I can't help wondering if we will see the birth of a new party that truly holds to the idea of more individual independence, smaller government, less federal social engineering, and lower taxes.
Term limits has a lot of appeal. If our representatives couldn't be re-elected, perhaps they would hold fast to the principles that won them the election in the first place. After all, if I couldn't stand for re-election, I might as well fight for the that which influenced the voters to choose me in the first place.
I'm pretty disappointed that Mitt has suspended his campaign, as other conservatives and talk radio folks are...but do you know who's to blame for this?
US. THE CONSERVATIVES.
Had Romney run against McCain, he would have won easily.
Had Huckabee run against McCain, he would have won easily.
But instead, we (the conservatives) had to split ourselves by voting for Huckabee OR Romney and McCain won on a divide and conquer tactic.
Now we'll have to see if Huckabee can capture the support of the Romney voters, because if he does he might be able to make this thing a little closer than people expect.
So yeah, we can pat ourselves on the back for letting Straight Talkin' McCain get this close to the nomination.
"will there be a demand for word verification every time we post here???"
That's set up for anonymous (or nickname) commenters.
Like Travis said, you can log in with your Google, AOL/AIM, LiveJournal, TypeKey, WordPress or any OpenID to avoid the word verification.
Mitt is such a waffler! We never tolerated that in Bill Clinton; why the double standard?
Oh yeah, I forgot: there's an "(R)" beside Romney's name, so he's cool.
Don't worry, though: so long as Romney just suspends his campaign (as opposed to bowing out) he still retains his delegates, and can essentially hold them hostage for a VP bid. He's not out of the race... yet.
I'm so disappointed in my fellow conservatives. Y'all will gloss over problems with Republicans that you'd never let Democrats get away with! I'm with you on McCain, though. There's one Republican candidate who rides the "straight talk express," but it ain't him.
You know, it seems like the typical Republican these days can't seem to embrace anything beyond FOXNews talking points. It's pathetic how dumbed-down the party's gotten; I wonder if we weren't actually better off when the Left dominated the mainstream media.
It's why I voted for the Constitution Party's Presidential candidate in '04, and it's why I'm voting for Ron Paul (at least in the PA primaries) in '08.
The ironic thing, when you look at the exit polls for these primaries, is the age demographics. Folks who've reached retirement age are primarily the McCain voters, and Paul gets more from the 18-24 bracket than any of the others. Is it because kids like myself are naive, or is it maybe because we prefer to get our news from blogs (and the internet in general) rather than newspapers and television (where there isn't much coverage of "less viable" candidates)?
I think I'm actually going to write more about that on my own blog, but it's sure given me a lot to think about.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I'm the "Travis" who e-mailed Gary yesterday about waterboarding.)
I will agree with Doug that conservatives have no one to blame for their sagging fortunes than themselves. They won the presidency in 2000, and congress in 2002. And what did we get? Runaway spending, a deficit of $400 billion this year, a huge expansion of government (medicare drug benefit) We got a poorly managed war (remember we did not get the "surge" until the voters slapped the party on the knuckles in the election of 2006). We get mean spirited attacks from the conservative radio people on McCain. Remember Reagan's 11th commandement, "thou shalt not speak ill of another republican"?.
That's the appeal of McCain. Conservatives didn't deliver. I want the big tent in which conservatives are just one part of the repubican party. I want spending reduced. I want the war competently concluded. I want clean air and water. I don't care what gay people do, or if some college kid burns a flag. I don't believe stem cells have souls, I don't want a baptist preacher putting prayer in my public school & I don't think any problems are solved by a 12 year old owning a Glock.
Whew, that felt goood!
I like the Dryfly Conservative !
Suddenly, however, Mitt Romney is "old news". In the world of 'celebrity status politics' it doesn't take long for for someone to get swept aside as the crowd gathers around somebody else.
It might not be a bad strategy on the Mittster's part though. Maybe figuring that the RNC will let McCain take the hit in '08 and let Romney resurface in 2012. It seemed to work for John McCain from 2000 to 2008.
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