Crowd Stunned As Romney Drops

Hundreds of Romney supporters packed into a basement ballroom here did not see it coming.

"Now, I disagree with John McCain on many issues," he said, drawing a chorus of anticipatory boos -- they thought Romney was going to start to attack McCain. "But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to he successful in Iraq."

A beat.

And then:

"I must now stand aside, for our party and our country," Romney said. "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 supporters began to boo. Others shouted, "No!" At least one woman shouted, loudly, "Why?"

"And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," he said.

More crowd noise: "No!" and "Oh no"

"This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters... many of you right here in this room... have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America. This has never been about me."

The crowd: "Come on! No!"

Romney: "I feel I have to now stand aside for our party and our country."

"We love you Mitt," one woman yelled.

Romney received a standing ovation upon exiting. His supports filed out of the ballroom, fumbling for their cell phones. I saw one woman crying.

Booo.... Scatterde for our party and our country
We love u mitt

Comments

He dropped out because of the country. He did it for us, people! What a noble sacrifice. What a noble man. What nice hair.

How long before McCain goes, "My.., my frien..., my friends, my friends... let us salute a great American hero.. Mitt Romney, the great governor of Massachusetts… "

Posted by Rum raisin | February 7, 2008 1:42 PM

i want the audio of those CPAC people moaning in pain as my ring tone.

Posted by rob! | February 7, 2008 1:43 PM

I hope the evangelicals are happy now.
They had to vote for "one of their own" (Huckabee), and in doing so have selected the most liberal Republican nominee in memory.

Way to go, idiots.

Welcome to the USA - the 'S' standing for socialists.

Posted by slick | February 7, 2008 1:57 PM

I hope the evangelicals are happy now.
They had to vote for "one of their own" (Huckabee), and in doing so have selected the most liberal Republican nominee in memory.

Way to go, idiots.

Welcome to the USA - the 'S' stands for socialists.

Posted by slick | February 7, 2008 1:57 PM

Why can't I get a standing ovation upon existing. Some people get all the breaks.

Posted by J.B. | February 7, 2008 2:04 PM

Romney was a great candidate and would have been the perfect candidate in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004. He is moderately conservative, he has no ethical baggage, he has a great functional family, he has proved himself in office and in his private life.

The equation has changed and I don't understand the new math.

Posted by mike | February 7, 2008 2:05 PM

Mike,

The new math is socialism (government cures all!) and identity politics.

Though the MSM won't talk about it (it goes against their world vision), let's see what we have so far...

Blacks voting overwhelmingly for Obama.
White women voting overwhelmingly for Hillary.
Evangelicals voting overwhelmingly for Huckabee.

Also, hispanics voting against Obama (though the racism of the latinos is NEVER questioned - only whites are racists, didn't you know that?)

The one nice surprise in all of this? White men voting bigtime for Obama. Damn, those racist white guys - how dare they vote for a, um, I mean, ah,....

Meanwhile...social security and medicare bankrupting the USA? Not a peep. Let's spend MORE! Yahooo! Free healthcare for everyone! Govt bailouts to subprime mortgage bagholders. On and on the list goes. Over the cliff...

I guess all those people incredibly excited about the most liberal senator don't own any US investments?

All 3 of these clowns: Business bad, government good.

Posted by slick | February 7, 2008 2:30 PM

mike,

I think the new math was that Bush is very unpopular with moderate and Republican-leaning independents, and Romney wasn't quite strong enough with conservatives to outweigh that. Romney basically ran as Bush + competence. If Bush weren't so unpopular, that probably would have been enough. But with Bush so unpopular among moderates and independents, McCain had their vote locked up; that combined with the 'success' of the surge which gave more conservative voters a reason to vote for McCain ended up being enough for McCain. And of course, the Huckabee effect which was entirely unforseen. Even if those voters may have backed McCain later in the race, it's not clear McCain wins NH if Romney wins Iowa convincingly as he was poised to do prior to the Huckabee surge.

Posted by jhb | February 7, 2008 2:31 PM

Surrender to terror? My brother, a Democrat, is in Iraq, prick.

Posted by Samir | February 7, 2008 2:31 PM

Him and his followers are massive... say, what's the word you use now if you want to avoid saying "cunts"?

Posted by b-$ | February 7, 2008 2:38 PM

It will be hard to top the miscalculation of Mitt Romney, in this year's cycle. Here is a guy who governed as a moderate Republican MA, and came into the race last year with a business-acumen calling card. The election now in 2008 is of course very much about the Economy, and the Christian Right looks very broken off, marginalized. So, had Mitt decided not to blur himself with all these newfangled cultural-right positions, and ran from the start on the economy, he might be cruising along just now. He didn't pick up the Economy message until the Primary season was already underway. Amazing stuff.

Finally, it goes without saying this is another bad day for the Immigration Screamers. They are now in the wilderness, without a candidate to voice their extreme message. I just can't get over the hilarity of Hannity, Limbaugh, David Frum, the entire Right Blogosphere, and other right-wing voices passionately telling us for 2 years that immigration is the number one issue for conservatives--only to see the voters in the GOP primaries blow right by the issue, and choose McCain who the Right considers a traitor (soft) on Immigration.

Delicious.

Posted by Gregor | February 7, 2008 2:39 PM

Mitt Romney was the best Republican candidate in a great while. I do no understand how real true Republicans could not get behind him. His values, ethics, and beliefs were the basic platform of the Republican Party. I stood behind him from the very start and will support him in 2012 without a doubt. Huckabee is an idiot for continuing to stay in the race. He is not electable. Now all of us can just hope that McCain chooses Romney as his VP and that Romney will consider taking that position. Romney believes in the American cause and that is why he was willing to spend tens of millions of dollars of his OWN money on his campaign for a 6 figure a year job. Its a sad day but now us Republicans must unite if we want to keep Obama and Hillary out of the White House. GOP GOP GOP!

Posted by Eric Higley | February 7, 2008 3:05 PM

Mitt Romney was the best Republican candidate in a great while. I do no understand how real true Republicans could not get behind him. His values, ethics, and beliefs were the basic platform of the Republican Party. I stood behind him from the very start and will support him in 2012 without a doubt. Huckabee is an idiot for continuing to stay in the race. He is not electable. Now all of us can just hope that McCain chooses Romney as his VP and that Romney will consider taking that position. Romney believes in the American cause and that is why he was willing to spend tens of millions of dollars of his OWN money on his campaign for a 6 figure a year job. Its a sad day but now us Republicans must unite if we want to keep Obama and Hillary out of the White House. GOP GOP GOP!

Posted by Eric Higley | February 7, 2008 3:08 PM

Slick, Mitt Romney actually pulled in 31% of the so-called "evangelical vote" on Tuesday with Mike Huckabee getting 34%. 34% is definitely not the "overwhelming" majority, especially when trailed by a Mormon by 3 percentage points. And if voting for McCain makes you socialist, then the only conservative running is Ron Paul, and I'm guessing you didn't vote for him.

Posted by Matt | February 7, 2008 3:21 PM

Yeah, the only place Huckabee really hurt Romney was in Iowa - but he really hurt him there. Romney's whole strategy was predicated on winning Iowa - he never really recovered.

Posted by jhb | February 7, 2008 3:24 PM

Romney made some of the same mistakes that Dean made, in the last cycle. Essentially both were moderates in their respective parties, and then ran too hard--much too hard--Right/Left to try and win the nomination. In Romney's case, the realignment of self was not pulled off in a believable way. Dean's problem was that people actually took him to be rather hard Left. Regardless, they both messed it up pretty badly.

I believe McCain can beat Hillary as long as he avoids making a fatal mistake--which would be putting Huck on the ticket. If Huck is on the ticket with his strong remarks on wanting to remake the Constitution in his own version of a Christian perspective, then say hello to HRC in the White House because moderate GOP and Independents in Ohio will NEVER vote for McCain/Huckabee.

I'm an Obama supporter who would consider voting for McCain has long as Mac doesn't do anything stupid in the Veep spot. No Huckabee, No Bill Bennett. No religious/culture crap.

Posted by Gregor | February 7, 2008 3:31 PM

Blacks voting overwhelmingly for Obama.
White women voting overwhelmingly for Hillary.
Evangelicals voting overwhelmingly for Huckabee

Mormons voting overwhelmingly for a Mormon. What is the world coming to?

Meanwhile...social security and medicare bankrupting the USA? Not a peep. Let's spend MORE! Yahooo! Free healthcare for everyone! Govt bailouts to subprime mortgage bagholders. On and on the list goes.

Just wondering if a certain trillion dollar war-of-choice is on the same list.

Posted by Rum raisin | February 7, 2008 3:33 PM

The only conservative running _is_ Ron Paul.

Looking forward to his CPAC speech at 4:30p.

Posted by anon4rp | February 7, 2008 3:43 PM

Slick, you say that socialism is 'government cures all'. Now I get it. Socialism is for the rest of the world: US government cures all their problems! That keeps the government off the backs of US citizens so that they can worry about their own healthcare. Is that right?

Posted by Benjy | February 7, 2008 4:27 PM

The world is divided into two sorts of people: those who were so attracted to Romney that they ascribed to him everything they wanted in a candidate, and those who saw him for the phony jerk he is. Romney's problem was that there weren't enough of the former. Ten years from now, when all that's left of his campaign is what's on YouTube, he'll be as embarrassing as a 70's sitcom. ("Did people really used to dress like that, Daddy?")

Posted by Mike | February 7, 2008 5:30 PM

jhb,
You makes some very good points on this thread. It would have been hard to predict Huckabee, but in hindsight, of course, one can. I believe a vacuum had been created for a traditional Christian conservative. Romney's religion is too different in a way, I think, reminiscent of Bobby Jindal's race being an issue the first time he ran for governor (he underperformed in, or even lost, staunch Republican, white, rural areas; but he became one of a few "stars" to emerge from Katrina was better known by his second run, and thus those same voters enthusiastically supported him to such a degree that he won the first round with a majority). I don't think anybody really believed Romney was a phony: in this day and age nobody but the most conservative among us have families as big as his, stays married to the same woman and has such a large number of grandkids at 60. One runs across any similar, anonymous family and concludes, truthfully, "religious conservative"; I think "phony" was a cover for other disagreements that a voter may have had with Gov. Romney, but mostly to manipulate other's opinion. Natural and part of the game, I suppose.

Anyways, McCain is quite far to the Left, perhaps too far, and thus may have created a vacuum for a third party candidate to exploit. Heck, Bush going to far to the left (neoconservative) gave rise to Ron Paul. And McCain is even more neoconservative than Bush.

Posted by Emma | February 7, 2008 11:55 PM

Sorry for all the grammatical errors... I'm literate, I swear!

Posted by Emma | February 7, 2008 11:58 PM

Now that Romney is out of the race, conservative voters must support Mike Huckabee and give him a fighting chance against McCain!

Posted by Dan | February 8, 2008 12:25 AM

No I will vote for McCain, as Mitt will... I will do whatever he thinks is best for the party and I will be back for Mitt 2012!

I hope for McCain/Romney ticket as it will be a great compromise and that will make us Mittheads and Mittens happy!

God Bless Mitt for his Graceful Exit. But, he's still in it! He did not WITHDRAW from the race because he will keep his delegates and he will go to the GOP convention and have a voice for us and then go from there... I hope for McCain/Romney 2008!

GO MITT!

Posted by Celestina | February 8, 2008 3:27 AM