As many of you will know by now, Mitt Romney withdrew from the Republican race, in a classy, gracious speech before CPAC today. As usual, he showed his greatness, even when accepting defeat. (I just don't know how anyone could have watched his and McCain's speeches and NOT seen the huge difference.)So, now what?
Huckabee
It will be interesting to see what Huckabee does now. He's in a bit of a bind, because he has said he'd fight to the convention, but now that Romney is out, what will he do? The blatantly obvious reason Huckabee remained in was to grope for a VP nod from McCain. Now, with Romney out, he'll only hurt both McCain and the party, with no chance of winning. If he withdraws, then it was clear he was in McCain's pocket all along. If he stays in, he hurts McCain (bye bye VP nod), hurts the party (bye bye Republicans giving him a shot next time), and embarrasses himself (something he's pretty good at =).
McCain
What will happen with McCain? Will the conservative wing of the Republican party embrace him? He has some real problems here. I think Obama is going to get the nomination from the Democrats, so McCain may not be able to count on the "Hillary will unite the party" strategy. For me, the only thing McCain could do to get my vote would be to pick Romney for his VP. I believe that would in fact unite the party. Problem is, McCain is a proud (and often liberal) man, and will likely pick a fellow moderate (he owes many of them favors), such as Charlie Crist, Governor of Florida (he owes him BIG TIME and could help him win FL).
Romney
It's been a wild ride, but I couldn't be more proud of whom I chose to back. I stood up and supported Romney when he was in single digits, and yet, he made it all the way to the final four. He remains, in my mind, the best choice to have helped our country, but like Reagan, he may have to wait four years.
He ran an impressive campaign, and left with class, choosing to do what was best for the party. I believe all of this will be remembered four years from now.
I predict Obama will go on to win the Presidency, screw everything up (especially the war and economy), and Romney will be back in four years to clean up the mess. It's what he does, he fixes things.
Kevin
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7 comments:
Yup, its too bad to see him not get the nomination. The thing I'm worried about is while McCain might have some support with the republicans, the average American is sick of two things:
1) The War
2) The Economy (and things like healthcare)
I don't care who you are, I'd say 70-80% of americans want the war to end and the economy to be better.
The problem is while McCain might have been slightly more popular amongst Republicans, he definitely is not popular among independents and democrats. I can see very few people voting for a President with a "100 year war" attitude. Yes he is very libral in some things, but he war attitude and lack of economy will lose him a lot of votes.
I guess the big issue is that if Romney had the nomination, almost every Pro-McCain person would vote for Romney in place of a democrat. However, I can see many republicans who would vote for Romney decided to NOT vote for McCain due to his issues. I have many republican friends who wanted Romney, but will vote Barack over McCain. So while McCain might have been more suited to win the Republican votes, he is poorly suite to win over the majority of americans.
Just my two cents. :P
Kevin, when you say: "I predict Obama will go on to win the Presidency, screw everything up (especially the war and economy),..."
Leaving aside the issue of the war, don't you think the economy is already screwed up? If not, why is there this rush to give away $150B to try and stimulate it, along with usual tinkering of the prime by the fed?
No, the problems are already there. Even if you don't feel it, the majority of Americans do.
Although I'm a nominal Democrat, I can respect the need for a balanced budget, and can see both sides of the argument for federal vs state allocation of resources. However, the Republican party is not conservative when it comes to fiscal matters, and hasn't been for a long time. Just google and find yourself a graph of the federal budget deficit for the past 50 years and you'll see that Republican administrations over that timespan have always had far, far worse records on overspending.
So if you really are concerned about the economy (I know, the debt isn't the only issue affecting the economy, but in the long term it is one of the main things), have a look at those graphs and reconsider who who want to vote for.
Now we have four cents between us.
Yes, I should have said "screw it up even further."
The worst thing that can happen, is when either party controls both the white house and congress, because they go on a spending spree.
Every time I listen in on the Democrats debate, I hear Hillary and Barack fighting over who will give away the most money and benefits (health care, education, etc.), but I never hear how they're going to pay for it. There is no peace dividend (Bill Clinton already cashed that in by reducing the military to scary levels). Sure, we can bring troops home, but that doesn't eliminate our defense budget.
McCain, Hillary, Obama...I don't think any of them are equipped to help get our economy on the right track. The one guy with the real smarts and experience to have fixed this, was just rejected by his party.
Kevin
It really is too bad about Romney. I am an elected delegate for Romney in my precinct in NV. The funny thing is that with Nevada now having a GOP caucus, I still have to go and attend the conference March 8th to elect the delegates to send on to the convention. It seems like a moot point now, but I will go nevertheless. BTW caucuses are ridiculous.
I am interested to hear who you voted for in last elections.
Sigh. Groan. I, too, voted for Romney. I thought he had some good sense, that he would really be a fresh change from the same old stuff, and that the "issue" of his faith might actually be an asset. Namely, that he wouldn't be beholden to the usual power brokers, as he (considered by them an outsider?) would see them in a very different and maybe unfriendly light.
Then, after he dropped out, I had to wonder whether he was put up to it, to throw a few million into a convincing run, just to keep another contender from amassing a lead over McCain.
I wish one could get one's votes back after a candidate drops out, so you could re-cast your vote for Personal Choice #2, be that whoever; but that couldn't work in a secret ballot system, I guess.
Chris,
I can assure you Romney wasn't in it just to ballast the ticket to McCain's favor. Romney was in it to win it. The real spoiler was Huckabee.
I agree with you that it would be good if elections could be more like the NBA playoffs, where you can vote individually in face-to-face match ups, with the winner advancing. This would then get rid of the split ticket problem, such as how Huckabee costing Romney the nomination. Those who voted for Huckabee, ended up with McCain, even though many of them would have preferred Romney. Such a one-on-one voting system would be much more fair, but having multiple voting days would be the challenge. It would be an easy problem to solve with the Internet (secure login system per Soc. Sec. # and such), but then it would be unfair to those homes without the Internet. However, not having access to a PC connected to the Internet is starting to become a pretty rare occurrence.
Kevin
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