Mitt dis-mitts

[edschweppe]

I was thinking that the Super Duper Pooper Scooper Tuesday primaries hadn't really decided anything ... until I saw CNN claiming that Mitt Romney has "suspended" his campaign:

Mitt Romney suspended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination Thursday, saying if he continued it would "forestall the launch of a national campaign and be making it easier for Sen. Clinton or Obama to win."

[ ... ]

Suspending a campaign has a different meaning depending on the party.

On the Republican side, decisions on how to allocate delegates is left to the state parties.

On the Democratic side, a candidate who "suspends" is technically still a candidate, so he or she keeps both district and statewide delegates won through primaries and caucuses. Superdelegates are always free to support any candidate at any time, whether the candidate drops out, suspends or stays in.

National party rules say that a candidate who "drops out" keeps any district-level delegates he or she has won so far but loses any statewide delegates he or she has won.

Having had Multiple-Choice Mitt as governor for four years, this is probably good news for the Republican Party. Romney has demonstrated a willingness to literally say anything that would help him get elected. And, as Governor, he was the latest in a string of disastrous heads for the Massachusetts GOP; in the 2004 elections, he spent millions of dollars on ads to get more Republican state legislators, and ended up with a net loss of seats.

On the other hand, this leaves Huckabee (who, AFAICT, is a devoted Christian Dominionist) as McCain's only real challenger. Not a pleasant thought.

Comments

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

Honestly, after the drubbing Huckabee got on Tuesday, I'm not sure how much of a true threat to McCain he is. He's way scary for me, and I'm *so* hoping he never comes any where near the White House. Not even as a tourist.

If it came to Clinton/Huckabee? I seriously think I'd walk in front of a bus to avoid voting.

*sigh*

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

Worry about a McCain / Huckabee ticket, then. McCain's getting on in years ...

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

I don't see that. I just don't see that Huckabee is actualy a viable VP either.

In any case, I think I'm going to hate this election. I can't stand Clinton and Obama's just pissed me off too much.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

OTOH, it also leaves the Republicans with NO candidate that they can get solidly behind, and that's going to be a problem for them -- especially if Obama gets the Democratic nomination.

Although President Scudder Huckabee would scare the shit out of me, I have to admit that my schadenfreude side would like to see him at least make a serious run at getting the Republican nomination. They've been playing footsie with the Dominionists for 20 years; why are they now surprised that the loonies want to run their own candidate?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

"Dominionists"

You don't like Canadians?

:->

[carl-schweppe.livejournal.com]

I dunno - even before Mitt dropped out, it was pretty clear that McCain was going to be the republican nominee. Even if Huckabee were to drop out, I don't see how Mitt could have caught him.

And it trimmed the Dems to II - Edwards is still around, but all he could possibly do is hope to have enough delegates to try to leverage them into something useful in the convention because neither Clinton nor Obama have a majority.