Mitt Romney's decision to stand aside and acknowledge Sen. John McCain as the likely Republican nominee will serve the former Massachusetts governor well in his future endeavors.
He will be well-positioned to run for office -- national or state -- anytime he wants. He is certainly an automatic leading candidate for the nomination in 2012, should Republicans fail to capture the White House in November.
McCain was gracious to Romney in his speech today, but some of his advisers understand that something substantive has to come from Romney's concession.
What follows is not a postmortem or an obit... just some thoughts.
Romney's fellow candidates did not like him. They saw him as an upstart who synthesized his conservatism in order to cater to the Republican base. Romney changed his mind on many positions; some of these were acknowledged and others weren't. Many of the position changes were suspiciously recent. Though, Romney was always more conservative, personally, than his opponents gave him credit for, he was struck with the curse of being found to lack credibility from the start.
He was more comfortable running as a social conservative than as a social liberal, but he never found the right way to voice his optimism, and his stump speeches often reflected pessimism, not optimism: America under attack from all corners.
Romney found his voice too late; had he run principally as an anti-Washington reformer, he would have found a niche in this race. For many, he was the default candidate, though. It's never good to be a default candidate...[edit]
Reagan was a Democrat, but even then was a Conservative. Reagan, like most before Roe v Wade, never considered abortion. When he signed the one law, he did not realize how far the Dims would take the exceptions for the health of the mother. Reagan was actually quite stable in his core values.
Since this is a thread about Romney’s graceful exit, and it did show class, I’ll not contradict you on Romney.
“...How did this happen?
I have not heard one person say they would vote for McPain.
I don’t know anyone that likes him or believes him...”
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McCain spent the last 10 years running for president. He “won” in a balkanized field in which sets of candidates either canceled one another out or operated as stalking horses for him. There’s a lesson here:
Conservatives need to identify a 2012 candidate NOW and even write in for him in November as many of us wrote in for Reagan in 1976. The candidate needs to be for-real, not a flirt like Thompson, someone who will get running and keep running. I like Romney and Santorum. Romney has the edge now because he has four million supporters in the bank, a nice starting place.
FReepers needs to be a place where this issue of picking a candidate for 2012 NOW is addressed. If the candidate isn’t already running for 2012 by convention time this year, he won’t win.
Maybe a committee of longer-term FReepers (than me) could put together an area of this website where the specific matter of who to back for 2012 is discussed and even decided. Politics is ground game and we need to knuckle down on this. The option is to just keep losing.
Many a candidate has nurtured his future, after a less than successful effort, by working to build the party, consolidate a definable point of view, and work for active candidates. If Romney has what it takes to subordinate himself to the greater good for four years, he can return with a flourish in 2012. If not, he will just be another come-and-go guy.
Sometimes known as "paying your dues." Nixon did it 1962 to 1968. Reagan did it 1976 to 1980. Can Romney do it, or does he not have the burning determination? Time will tell.
I would not assume he would be the leader for 2012 though. If the ticket ends up being McCain-Huckabee, Huck could be the leader...or there may be someone else on the horizon.It all depends on two things--the outcome of 2008 and what Romney actually wants. If the GOP wins in 2008 then who knows what will prevail for 2012-- McCain, the VP, or what. But if Romney wants to be president, he has a clear charge for the next four years--work to build the party, support active candidates, support conservative causes with actions not just words, and we will see four years from now.
If he goes away and heads up a lucrative CEO job and sinks from public view, then he's done. He can't get anywhere politically thataway.