Posted on 01/08/2008 6:15:03 PM PST by NormsRevenge
BEDFORD, N.H. - Mitt Romney pledged to "fight across this nation" for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday after a second place finish in New Hampshire, the same spot where he finished in last week's Iowa caucuses. He likened it to another silver medal in his quest and praised GOP victor John McCain for a "first class race."
"I'd rather have a gold" medal, the former Massachusetts governor told supporters. He vowed to stay in the race and set his sights on the primary in Michigan in one week. He was raised in Michigan and his father George Romney was president there.
"There have been three races so far. I've gotten two silvers and one gold. Thank you Wyoming," said the one-time Olympics organizer.
"I will fight across this nation. On to Michigan and South Carolina and Florida and Nevada," he said.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
BEDFORD, N.H. (AP) — Mitt Romney pledged a long fight for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday, regardless of finishing second to John McCain in the New Hampshire primary after posting another second-place finish to Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucuses.
In between was a weekend win for Romney in the Wyoming caucuses, which the former Massachusetts governor said was testimony to his 50-state strategy.
"I'm going to stay in this race to win," Romney told reporters after beginning his day at a polling station in Manchester. "I don't think the Republican Party wants to have only one person in this contest until the very end. I expect to be one of the two that's in it to the very end."
During the final 24 hours of the New Hampshire campaign, Romney and his aides largely shed their recent inhibitions, openly predicting a come-from-behind-victory against McCain. They claimed independents were breaking their way based on Romney's performance in a pair of weekend debates.
Nonetheless, Romney chided McCain and Huckabee for cherry-picking contests, with Huckabee having focused on Iowa while McCain focused on New Hampshire. Romney spent more than $7 million on advertising in each state, and held as many, if not more, events in both places than any of his GOP rivals.
Romney, 60, is a former venture capitalist who made hundreds of millions before taking over the scandal-ridden 2002 Winter Olympic Games and returning them to profitability. He failed in his first bid for elective office, a 1994 effort to oust Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. But in 2002 he rode his wave of Olympic glory to a four-year term as the Bay State's governor.
A Mormon, Romney aggressively courted Christian conservatives — some of whom consider Mormons members of a cult — and in doing so brought the issue to the fore in the 2008 campaign.
Romney traveled to the George Bush Presidential Library in Texas last month to deliver a speech spelling out his views on faith in American politics.
Interviews Tuesday with voters exiting their polling places showed that about a fifth of New Hampshire GOP voters said they were born again or evangelical voters, compared to the six in 10 who said so in last week's Iowa Republican caucuses and boosted Huckabee to victory there.
Most New Hampshire Republicans said the top quality they were seeking in a candidate was someone who shared their values and is authentic. Romney was the big leader among those naming values, McCain among those seeking a candidate who says what he believes. About a quarter named experience, an area where McCain had a slight edge.
McCain was viewed as the strongest leader and most qualified to be commander-in-chief.
Romney, who aired ads critical of Huckabee and McCain in Iowa and New Hampshire, was seen more than the others as having waged a negative campaign, the exit survey found.
New Hampshire was a pivotal state for Romney, who predicated his campaign on starting fast with wins here and in Iowa and using that momentum to steamroll his opponents in later contests in Michigan — his birth state — and South Carolina, Florida and the two dozen states voting on Feb. 5.
Romney warned Republicans that with Barack Obama surging against veteran senators on the Democratic side, Republicans would make a mistake to nominate another Senate veteran in McCain.
"I don't have years and years of favors I have to repay, lobbyists who've raised all sorts of money for me, deals I've worked out in the cloak room," he told New Hampshire voters. "I come in from the outside."
Using your logic, it should be Thompson getting out of the way of 723 vote Duncan Hunter."
Now THAT is funny! Even hilarious! : )
Frankly, Mitt Romney's choice of VP wouldn't influence my opinion of Romney one iota. I'm sure that I'm not alone.
‘Why give it up when you are leading?....duh?’
Same question here.
Romney needs to focus more on his managerial experience and especially his turnaround of the Olympics. And at the same time he needs to show the door to some of his overpaid consultants.
‘I’ll repeat again. Put up Massachusetts liberal Romney and he won’t win the South. He isn’t going to win any rodent states, and how’s he going to win without the South ? Where are these Conservatives that are magically going to turn out for him ? I won’t vote for him under any circumstances, and neither will millions of others whom are being ignored by the party’s tack to the far left.’
Depends on who the VP is on a Romney ticket. Romney/Thompson, Romney/Hunter, Romney/Huckabee all bring the South with them.
What I find interesting is those slamming Romney for ‘flip flopping’ don’t take into account he was a governor of a very liberal state, and to win it he had to move left.
Now that he’s running for national office, he’s come back to the Right...and thats a ‘bad thing’?
I don’t get the logic.
You and I see this the same way.
Somebody in another forum mentioned Haley Barbour as a VP selection, its a interesting suggestion, to say the least. He was magnificent dealing with Katrina, for example. And he has a very good reputation on Capital Hill to this day.
‘Why ? You’re so anxious for your liberal RINO to run our party straight off the cliff, just like he did in Massachusetts.’
Wow. Until Romney won in Massachusetts, most of us didn’t KNOW the Republican Party even had an OFFICE in that state.
Most of us think the Ma. GOP kind of deserved to be run off the cliff. In fact, a lot of us spent last year running our entire national party off the cliff — it’s why we have almost no republican congressmen from the northeast now.
So to the degree that Romney helped the process, and frankly I don’t credit him much, he was just doing the work most of the conservtives here wanted to be done.
Yep.
(chuckle)
That is amusing.
Actually, Willard's biggest support in NH was in Nashua and along the I-95 corridor where all the Massachusett's refugee camps are located. Romney lost to McInsane in the central and northern areas of NH which are more independent and were McCain strongholds in 2000 also.
Also, why would Willard drop out? He has the lead in Delegates and is the only candidate to finish in the top 2 in every state so far.
I do think he is wounded by not winning at least one of Iowa or NH after all the time and money he spent, but wounded does not equal dead.
Hopefully Fred will pull his head out of his fourth point of contact and win SC, and make all this a moot point anyway.
Mike Dukaksis saved an Olympics? I did not know that.
You sure can’t get a majority by never coming in first. You may achieve a plurality. If nobody has a majority of committed delegates by the time of the convention, I believe the operating term is a “brokered” convention.
“It’s not a given.”
No, it’s not. People can stay home. Every election, many people do. It’s not really s zero-sum game. In fact, the most reliable strategy is to maximize turnout.
Fred could spend no money anywhere — but he wouldn’t win the election simply because he spent less money losing.
Campaign money is meant to be spent. Romney doesn’t get a lot of good free press from the liberal media like McCain and Huckabee.
If spending money ensured a victory, everybody would spend a lot more money. Money just gets you name recognition, something you also get from a barage of free media.
It will either be Romney v. Clinton and a President Romney or Rudy vs. Hillary and a Presient Clintons.
OK, thanks. I’ll have to look up that “brokered” term.
No state party deserves to get run off a cliff. When the leaders are incompetent liberals, THEY deserve to be run off the cliff and replaced with competent Conservatives. The MA GOP would be in excellent shape as a viable minority with farm-team candidates for higher office if it stopped pandering to the far-left. Ditto for EVERY state party where the GOP is disproportionately weak.
People vote for Presidents, not Vice-Presidents. A Massachusetts liberal with a supposed Southern Conservative won't work. Just ask the ticket of Dukakis and "Lord" Bentsen.
"What I find interesting is those slamming Romney for ‘flip flopping’ don’t take into account he was a governor of a very liberal state, and to win it he had to move left."
That's not an excuse. We have plenty of liberal Governors of Conservative GOP states and you don't see them "going Right." Don Carcieri in neighboring RI governs a heavily rodent state and he stands firm on Conservative principles. He didn't go running off like a failed loser like Joe Isuzu Romney in '06 and had the balls to run for reelection in one of the worst years in party history, and he won again. If we were going to have a Northeasterner on the ticket, it should be Gov. Carcieri.
"Now that he’s running for national office, he’s come back to the Right...and thats a ‘bad thing’? I don’t get the logic."
Came back ? He never was on it. But you just answered your own question. He's pretending to be Conservative NOW that he's running for national office. A convenient opportunist with ZERO credibility.
Did you know that until 2006, the Democrats hadn’t elected a Governor since 1986 ? The party was on a major-league rebound by the early ‘90s. I’ll bet you didn’t know we were only a handful of seats away from capturing control of one of the legislative bodies. I’ll bet you didn’t know we were competitive in half the federal offices, for statewide, and the like.
After 16 years of RINOs from Weld through to his protege Joe Isuzu Romney, we are now competitive for nothing there. The rodents now control nearly 90% of the legislature and 100% federal and statewide. Republican leaders increase the party’s numbers or maintain majorities where they are, they don’t kill them dead.
You don’t have the right to become CEO when you ruin your own local franchise. Period.
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