Mitt Romney has many, many faults, but he’s not dumb. And after a successful career in the private sector, he probably learned very well that it’s a mistake to throw good money after bad. So, he’s exiting stage right.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will suspend his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, GOP sources tell CNN.
Romney had won 270 delegates in through the Super Tuesday contests, compared with front-runner John McCain’s 680…. Although he outspent his rivals, Romney received just 175 delegates on Super Tuesday, compared with at least 504 for McCain and 141 for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, according to CNN estimates.
Romney had one last shot to make a serious play for the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday, and he came up short. He assured supporters yesterday that he’d stick around and position himself as the more-conservative alternative to John McCain, but with Mike Huckabee lingering, Romney was out of options.
I’ve always felt kind of bad for Romney, in part because my suspicion is he would have been the best president from the Republican field, despite his shameless flip-flopping and lack of core values.
Given that he was a moderate supporter of abortion and gay rights before deciding to run for president, I’d say Romney did pretty well. Indeed, over the last year, every step of the way, Romney has been “the other guy.” When McCain started out as the GOP frontrunner early on, it was Romney who was positioned as his most credible rival. Over the summer, when Giuliani was considered the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, his principal foe was Romney, who was trying to highlight the former mayor’s less-than-conservative record. When Thompson got in the race, his principal foe was Romney, who was trying to hold onto the GOP base. When Huckabee started gaining support in Iowa, his principal foe was Romney, who was trying to characterize the Arkansas governor as unreliable on taxes and immigration. For the last few weeks, as McCain has solidified his role as the frontrunner, he’s been up against Romney.
As I argued recently, for practically an entire year, the various campaigns went up and down, but in every instance, there was Romney, in their face and presenting himself to voters like an ingratiating, toadying Eddie Haskell.
The problem is, no one ever liked Eddie Haskell.
Mark Halperin published an item this morning, listing the 10 things Romney could have done differently. Some of these points are more persuasive than others, but I have a different list: my top 10 favorite Mitt Romney moments from the presidential campaign:
10. Romney took a surprisingly passive attitude towards the terrorist responsible for 9/11. “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” Romney said of Osama bin Laden. He later said the opposite.
9. Romney was asked why none of his five sons had joined the U.S. military. He responded that they’re all serving their country by working for his campaign.
8. Romney bragged that he wanted to “double Guantanamo.”
7. Romney, who consistently pleaded for tolerance of religious diversity when it came to his personal faith, told an audience that he wouldn’t allow Muslims in his cabinet.
6. Romney once argued that Iran, a mid-level country with a weak economy, represents “the greatest threat to the world since the fall of the Soviet Union, and before that, Nazi Germany.”
5. In his big religion speech at the H.W. Bush library, Romney insisted, “Freedom requires religion.” I’m still not sure what this is supposed to mean.
4. At a nationally televised debate, Romney argued, with a straight face, “[If] Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction, had Saddam Hussein, therefore, not violated United Nations resolutions, we wouldn’t be in the conflict we’re in.”
3. Romney tried to pander to a South Carolina audience by proclaiming, “We should withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council.” (The United States can’t withdraw from the Human Rights Council — we don’t have a seat on the human rights council. The Bush administration has been boycotting the human rights council for quite a while.)
2. Romney’s story about having seen his father march with Martin Luther King was a convoluted mess.