Romney isn't as formidable a candidate as his boosters would like to claim. Mitt Romney was in it long before Mike Huckabee, yet Huckabee quickly and easily out-maneuvered him.
And never forget that quite a bit of the money Romney spent was his own money. By February of 2008, he had lent his campaign 35 million dollars (^). I'm not sure of the total by the time it was over, but according to the article, by February, 2008 Romney had lent his campaign more than 28% of it's total funds.
My biggest fear is that Romney will once again use his own money to run his campaign and choke out candidates who have a better chance at being elected, but who have to raise money the old fashioned way.
Mitt Romney & his formidable ego will probably run, squashing more promising candidates, and paving the way for a second Obama term.
I think it was more tham 35M. He raised around 60M and loaned himself 45M for a total of 105M or so. So it was about 45%.
And yes he was outmaneuvered by Huckabee, but for a 1 term Gov of MA who no one had heard of as January, 2007, he did ok. He went up against John McCain who was a famous war hero and had 100% name ID and a whole organziation from 2000 and Rudy who was a hero after 9/11 and led throughout 2007. Also Fred who was the great conservative hope and a famous actor. Given where he stared he did ok.
And there’s no McCain or Rudy in this field. No nationally known war hero or national hero, no political stars like they were. Pawlenty, Thune, Daniels and the others mentioned aren’t really in their league. So he starts from a much better place.
I think you’ll see a lot of the beltway and establishment GOP coalesce behind him and quickly, try and crowd out anyone else, like they did with W in 99.
I mean, I think it’s going to be either Romney, Huckabee or Palin barring something totally unforeseen happening. So, given that he’ll be a main contender, he’s ipso facto formidable. It’s very rare that someone runs away with it. Romney and Huck challenged McCain. McCain challenged W. Buchanan challenged Dole. Dole challenged 41. 41 challenged Reagan. Reagan challenged Ford. Same on the dem side. Gore was relaly the only guy in the last 40 years or so who ran away with the nomination in either party.