“..this board four years when Fred Thompson dropped out. JimRob endorsed Huckabee but the vast majority of freepers stampeded to the more liberal Romney.”
Then that vast majority must have been smoking crack.
Go Newt!
I didn't agree with the pro-Romney forces on FR back in 2008, but they made a simple argument:
Romney's record might have been worse than Huckabee - HOWEVER, the "MOST IMPORTANT" (apparently "only") concern in the primary was "STOPPING McCAIN"), and they insisted that ONLY Romney had the national name ID, money, resources, and speaking ability to do that (and ignored the fact that Huckabee had actually won more votes at that point)
Therefore, Huckabee was only staying in to be a "spoiler", and needed to "drop out and endorse Romney", so Romney would have a unified conservative base to "beat McCain"
Gee, you don't suppose any similar arguments are popping up in 2012?