Posted on 02/07/2008 11:52:54 AM PST by Kaslin
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination Thursday in front of the crowd that made him the conservative candidate one year ago.
After long remarks defending his conservative beliefs to the the Conservative Political Action Committee's annual convention, Romney said if he stayed in the race it would only strengthen the Democratic candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.).
"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win," Romney said. "And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."
Romney added: "I hate to lose."
Romney's departure all but assures that Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) will win the GOP nomination. McCain has a substantial delegate lead over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee’s campaign said Thursday he will continue his quest for the Republican nomination now that Romney is out of the race.
“We know it's an uphill climb, but we knew that a year ago when we announced,” said Kirsten Fedewa, a Huckabee spokeswoman.
She said Huckabee’s campaign planned to “press forward.”
The back of the convention ballroom was abuzz with reports that Romney was leaving the race moments before he addressed the crowd. The former governor suffered losses devastating to his presidential hopes on Super Tuesday.
Romney and his staff said Tuesday night and all through Wednesday that Romney was intent on staying in the race to challenge McCain and Huckabee.
But Wednesday afternoon The Hill reported that Romney planned to meet with his congressional supporters after addressing CPAC.
At CPAC's conference last year, Romney won the straw poll while McCain was booed for skipping the event. The CPAC crowd was dejected when Romney began to hint that he was in fact leaving the race.
With Romney out, McCain is considered by most to be the presumptive frontrunner. That said, Huckabee strung together an impressive slew of Southern victories on Super Tuesday, winning contests in his home state as well as West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.
So - who gets his delegates?
Let me guess, when you like the guy and he changes position, that’s a “seeing the light.” When you don’t like the guy and he changes position that’s a “flip-flop.”
Apparently, the answer is "NO".
I don’t think that will be possible in just four years - I knew it was all over for Romney when Catholics started sending me all these emails telling me not to support Mormons in politics, since so many of their converts were former Catholics.
It’s gonna be fascinating to watch Huck explain why he still has nothing bad to say about Johnny Mac.
No, flip flopping is when you change your mind to whatever the polls say at the current time, or whatever the audience wants to hear. Hillary comes to mind
So when Mitt was running for elected office in liberal Massachusetts he was anti-Reagan, anti-life, anti-conservative. But when he was running for the nomination of the Republican Party he saw the light and became pro-life, pro-Reagan and pro-conservative.
Boy, Mitt sure had lucky timing to see the light right before he ran for the nomination.
He is not walking the walk as a Christan. I know fine Christan men and Mike Huckabee is nothing like them
I am all for screaming to the high heavens until they hear us to get our choice of candidate(conservative)and vote back.
Huh?
Mike Huckabee is the only honest man left in the election.
Somebody needs to explain to me how a dead, buried and broke John McCain came to be the presumptive nominee.
Something stinks really, really bad.
ROFL
He would have to win 85% of the delegates left to be awarded.
______________________
To win. He needs about 50% to keep McCain from getting the nomination and throwing this to the convention.
Somebody needs to explain to me how a dead, buried and broke John McCain came to be the presumptive nominee.
__________________________
RINO Romney’s money pushed everyone else out of the race.
I’ll try it again, Mitt was saying anything the liberals wanted to hear to win in Massachusetts and when he decided to run for the Republican Nomination he was saying anything the conservatives wanted to hear.
They never apologized for the meme that Thompson was going to drop out after IA/NH and endorse McCain. They also never apologized for the Thompson-as-stalking-horse conspiracy, even though polls from after he dropped out showed that Thompson had actually been keeping a lot of votes from McCain).
Just like the leftists, they never stop to reconcile their wild accusations with actual events...they just move on to the next conspiracy.
That's what Romney should do. I don't currently trust him at all, but I am open to changing my mind if I see actual proof via action over time. If he ran for the Senate and won (thus doing us all a service by knocking out Kennedy or Kerry), then hewed consistently to conservative principles for six years, I would gladly admit I was wrong about him.
I don't think that's what he's planning, though. He dropped out because he ran the numbers and saw that he couldn't win...so he exited in a way that would pave the road to 2012 for him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.