Posted on 02/14/2008 2:47:40 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
ABC News' George Stephanopoulos and John Berman Report: Former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., today endorsed his former Republican rival Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The endorsement took place this afternoon at Romney for President headquarters in Boston.
Romney asked his delegates to throw their support to McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
"Even when the contest was close and our disagreements were debated, the caliber of the man was apparent," Romney said, standing with McCain for the announcement at his now-defunct campaign's headquarters in Boston. "As a party, we come together."
Accepting Romney's endorsement, McCain said despite a "hard campaign" now "we move forward together for the good of our party and the nation."
Once bitter rivals locked in an acrimonious Republican nomination fight, Romney abandoned his 2008 bid following a poor showing in the Super Tuesday contests this month. Romney had won the support of many in the conservative wing of the party, but failed to overtake McCain in either delegates or the number of state wins.
The former governor made his decision to endorse today in the interest of helping McCain gain the 1,191 delegates he needs to secure the party nomination and unite the party for the general election against the Democrats in November.
Romney campaign manager Beth Myers notified McCain campaign manager Rick Davis in a telephone call today of Romney's decision, and they immediately made arrangements for an announcement in Boston this afternoon since McCain was campaigning in Rhode Island today.
After McCain's townhall meeting near Providence this afternoon, the campaign is flying to Boston for the endorsement.
Romney and McCain will meet today before they both announce the formal endorsement at a press conference.
Are we now being instructed to not tell the awful truth(s) about mcCain?
You nailed it. All signs in the political trends point to Mexico calling the shots. It is coincidental they are our top supplier of petroleum, along with Canada and Venezuela.
Not a republican and probably never will be. The party isn’t conservative now, hasn’t been for quite some time, and shows no signs of moving in that direction.
Wouldn’t that be for the same reason that everything Fred Thompson said pretty much was ignored by the press?
I’m not trying to be overly gullible here, I’m simply trying to figure out why you think the AP lied about a direct quote, but that Fred has refused to correct it.
Do you think Fred doesn’t KNOW that everybody is saying he supports McCain? Do you think he doesn’t support McCain but doesn’t think it’s important enough to correct the AP story?
I understand I guess that you don’t want to believe Thompson would back McCain. I just want to see some evidence of it before I join you in your belief.
I knew there was something off about Romney—now I know why.
For example: Even those here on FR last year who were loudly and proudly supporting Rudy were told be literally hundreds, maybe thousands of conservatives that nominating Rudy, a liberal, would be a disaster - not only for the long term future of the GOP - but in the short term, as a very high % of conservatives would not support him in a general election. They did not care. As Howlin famously blurted - they were tired of "our boots on their necks". The same warning was made on Townhall, Redstate, Hannity's forum, Coulter's forum, Liberty Post and just about every conservative and republican forum in the country. And if you listened to talk radio, the same situation - with many conservatives telling the hosts exactly the same thing. (I'll grant you most ignored McCain because it seemed impossible after the Amnesty debacle that he would be competitive - and for a long time, he wasn't). The Conservative & MSM papers and websites were full of stories about how Rudy McRomney was unacceptable to conservatives and they were looking for someone else. The "draft Fred" movement was but one manifestation. So are you telling me that the rank and file GOPers and the RNC were unaware of the discontent? Surely you jest.
You can win people by convincing them to embrace conservative values, or you can try to threaten them into voting for your candidates. But the 2nd path is rarely successful, because people who would give in to threats will probably vote for the democrats anyway.
Yes, there are many ways to argue for conservatism. And showcasing Rudy McRomney's liberal records here and all over the conservative media is one way. Showcasing others' far more conservative records was another way. But one thing was made abundantly clear. Conservatives demanded that the GOP nominate a conservative. The problem was that the fans of the non-conservatives decided to put lipstick on their pigs to remake liberal careers into 'conservative' ones instead of give up on their candidates. They have every right to do so, but they were foolish to ignore the conservative base's warnings. Now we are in a nasty situation.
Of course, in the real world the average voter knew nothing of this “threat” that was made, and simply voted for the candidate they felt most comfortable with. And unfortunately, that was John McCain more often than any other candidate.
In the real world, if John McCain fans did not know about his amnesty support, his global warming legislation, his sh*tty record on the 2A, and his authorship of McCain-Feingold - among other liberal activities - then they are either living in caves or they don't care and voted for him anyway. If they were unaware of conservative discontent with him (they certainly know now), that is a sign they do not pay attention to any conservative media.
We had hoped it could be Fred Thompson, but he failed because (in my opinion) of his lack of interest in religion. That gave rise to Huckabee.
When Fred wasn’t the candidate, the only candidates left were Romney and Huckabee. And neither was acceptable to a portion of the base either.
I for one did not hope it would be Fred, though I made it very clear, as did other Hunter and Tancredo and even Paul fans that they would still vote for him in the general. He certainly had some less than conservative flaws, but overall, it was generally agreed he was still a conservative and had a pretty solid platform. Romney, who basically reinvented himself for this campaign, did seem to be the fallback guy after Fred dropped out, but having Huck taking the vast majority of values voters support split the conservative vote enough for McCain - previously dead - to succeed.
So essentially, conservatives offered 5 candidates this year, NONE of whom were acceptable to all parts of the base.
No candidate is going to please all conservatives. That is why we fight it out in the primary. But the difference is that if one of the five conservatives wins, you don't have large swaths of conservatives sitting it our, like you will find with a liberal winning. And in theory, the McCain or Rudy fans - would also get behind a conservative nominee - becuase they spent all their time arguing, falsely I might add, that indeed their guy was a conservative too and they wanted a conservative.
Of those candidates, Romney was the closest to ESPOUSING the views of all the parts of conservatism, but he wasn’t trusted. But the average voter saw him as very conservative, and in fact many independents turned from him because of that.
Yes, Romney ran on conservatism. And yes, many of us who knew his record well did not trust him completely and fought for a different choice. But the fact remains, most of his harshest critics, such as me, would still vote for him in a general election, hoping he would follow through. With McCain, there was no hope. And yep, the 'independents' in NH and elsewhere gave McCain the boost he needed as Huck, Fred, and Mitt split the republican vote. But McCain had lots of republican votes too. And most of these folks had to be aware of his record and had to be aware of the animosity of conservatives towards him. They did not care, and will reap what has been sown.
The funniest part was how we all knew that picking a Senator was a bad idea, but then many of us grabbed a former senator, as if that was better than a sitting senator.
Not that big of a deal in a race where all the dems frontrunners are senators, IMO.
We are stuck with McCain as our nominee. Some conservatives will stay home. Some will grudgingly vote for him. Some will actively work for him, in order to pull other conservative house and senate candidates along into a winning situation.
I'd phrase it differently. The GOP powers that be, even before Romney got out of the race, but especially since he left, started their "closing ranks" behind McCain. Rudy endorsed him. Crist endorsed him. Jeb. etc etc. He is the establishments choice. And all this closing of ranks assured his victory. Once again, they will reap what they have sown.
If McCain loses, and the conservatives fail to show up, it will be the end of conservatives for a few years, because no moderate is going to let us have a conservative candidate because of our lack of loyalty. Heck, we’ve been screaming at the moderates about this for years, and payback will be sweet for them.
Once again, I look at it differently. A party that would select the 'maverick' McCain as it's candidate, even after the Amnesty debacle of just a few months ago, is no longer the conservative party it claims to be. So it is not the reaction of conservatives to this stupid selection that is going to kill the party, it is the ascension of a liberal, backed to the hilt by the power brokers in the party. Actions have consequences. And the consequence for me is my re-registration as an independent and distancing myself from the GOP. Global warming, belatedly being embraced by Bush & co. will be a full fledged priority to a McCain administration. I will never support those that perpetrate this fraud on America. The Law of the Sea Treaty, belatedly accepted by the Bush administration, will now be enacted under Mccain, losing more of our sovereignty to the United Nations. I can NEVER vote for such a supporter. And Amnsety, which we fought so hard to kill last spring, will be guided by the architect of that plan, who disparaged the opponents and prefers Ted Kennedy's opinion to that of the conservative base.
I will NOT subject the country to 4 years of Obama to “teach us a lesson”, or to “win a political victory in 2012”.
It will not be you who subjected the country to Obama. It will be the failure of the GOP to govern as conservatives and the GOP's nomination of one of the most putrid candidates out of the 10 that ran.
I actually don’t care if he endorses McCain, particularly if he did it when it was already evident that the nomination would be McCain’s. Who else was he to endorse at that point? Ron Paul?
What I have a problem with is this ‘statement’ that nobody can seem to produce and nobody seemed to make any record of aside from a single writer at the AP mentioning it in an article about something else.
Why do I think the AP lied? I don’t know if they did or didn’t. But I have reason to doubt them because they’ve been proven to be full of crap on multiple past occasions. Kinda like Mitt Romney, but that’s another matter... :p
Well it would make a stronger ticket against the socialists if one of the two on your hypothetical ticket weren't a socialist.
The party powers that be make the decision - which is better that one person deciding who the VP/possible next president will be.
Unfortunately you are talking about the party that is currently giving us McCain. Yikes.
As for McCain his actions especially with respect to getting control of the illegal immigration issue have been disingenuous in my opinion. When you add to his legacy the camaraderie with Teddy Kennedy and Diane Feingold my gut says he is just another Democrat.
When you talk about party loyalty and lining up it was McCain in the past who threatened to change his party affilation to Democrat.
So with that view in mind I did something I have not done in over 30 years and that was vote in the Democratic primary. On last Tuesday I walked in and voted for Hillary Clinton.
If I have to choose between Castor Oil, a Suppository and an Enema I will pick the one which allows getting the dirty deed over with fast. To that end I feel electing a Kruschev Hugging Communist is the best choice. Maybe the American electorate will get a bait of liberals with Hillaryitis.
Thus with great disdain I say Hillary in 08!
Sigh
There are some such as yourself that have a hard time dealing with reality. You choose to instead to bury your head in ill founded conspiracies to explain away your disappointments. Example: We can disregard all polling because we know they are never done to show the opinions as they exist within a population. They are only used to push and manipulate opinion in favor of the person or organization paying for the poll. Hogwash. I’m not saying this doesn’t happen regularly, but it is far from being a universal practice.
This opinion shows a real lack of maturity. I suggest you try to deal with life as it really is. Greater success will come to you when you do.
Your point about polling is irrelevant. The fact is, polls are being used to lead the people around by the nose, not to inform them of anything that contributes to saving this country.
It's been over for Huckabee for a long time already. He was doomed after Super Tuesday.
On the sideline, enjoying the spin without being in it.
Huckabee has no chance of getting the nomination; at this point, McCain's delegate lead is insurmountable. Hence Romney is endorsing McCain because it's pointless to fight him anymore, and he wants to help unify the party behind its inevitable nominee so as to defeat the Democrats in Novemeber.
It's the same reason Thompson endorsed McCain after Super Tuesday.
This isn't complicated.
Huckabee has no chance of getting the nomination; at this point, McCain's delegate lead is insurmountable. Hence Romney is endorsing McCain because it's pointless to fight him anymore, and he wants to help unify the party behind its inevitable nominee so as to defeat the Democrats in Novemeber.
It's the same reason Thompson endorsed McCain after Super Tuesday.
This isn't complicated.
It's a tough choice, and not a pleasant one. But if you can't understand why McCain, even with all his fatal flaws, would make a better president than Hillary or Obama, who have even more fatal flaws, then you're no conservative.
Really. Politics makes strange bedfellows. Does this move in 1976 by Ronald Reagan negate all the conservative principles he espoused and worked for before and after? I think not. Romney didn't say he'd choose Lincoln Chafee or Chuck Hagel as VP, all he did was say he'd support our party's presumptive nominee. Sheesh. This impossible standard which everyone is being held to is really getting tiresome. Had it been in place in 1980, we would have rejected one of the best Presidents our country has ever known.
Reagan had promised, if nominated, to name Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as his running mate, in a bid to attract liberals and centrists in the party. This move backfired, however, as many conservatives (such as Senator Helms) were infuriated by Reagan's choice of the "liberal" Schweiker, while few moderate delegates switched to Reagan. Helms promptly began a movement to draft conservative Senator James L. Buckley of New York as the presidential nominee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Republican_National_Convention
What the hell are you waiting for? Someone to do it for you?
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