CNN is reporting the breaking news that "Romney to suspend campaign." Mitt is quitting. He'll apparently be making the big announcement today at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). But Mitt being Mitt, he could just flip-flop and get back in.
"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 (Barack) Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Romney planned to say in a speech to the conference, according to the Associated Press.
"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, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country," Romney planned to say, reports the AP.
Despite his recent campaign talk, Romney chose profit over people. That may be life in the fast lane at an investment firm such as Bain Capital, but he's the one attacking others on the subject of protecting every single job. Glass houses, Mitt, glass houses.
In early 1995, as the Ampad paper plant in Marion, Ind., neared its shutdown following a bitter strike, Randy Johnson, a worker and union official, scrawled a personal letter to Mitt Romney, pouring out his disappointment that Romney, then chief executive of the investment firm that controlled Ampad, had not done enough to settle the strike and save some 200 jobs.
"We really thought you might help," Johnson said in the handwritten note, "but instead we heard excuses that were unacceptable from a man of your prominent position."
Romney, who had recently lost a Senate race in which the strike became a flashpoint, responded that he had "privately" urged a settlement, but was advised by lawyers not to intervene directly. His political interests, he explained, conflicted with his business responsibilities.
Now it's Mitt's day to talk about handouts. Until Detroit can show they know how to compete and hire Americans, forget it. We have a long way to go until we get that point and there are much more pressing issues for the country. It may not be hunting season, but it's obviously pandering season.
Note to Mitt: It's not 1950 anymore so quit thinking Detroit is going to rescue the US economy.
His liberal record went right up until his final days in office as governor. Despite what he has said since leaving office, he was always there, ready to help out to keep abortions safe and legal. His new claim is that he would have blocked it if he had the chance. Of course, Mitt. Of course you would have done that. If only the track record didn't get in the way of facts. Why do facts always have to get in the way of a good story?
More hypocrisy from Mitt, after the jump.
Former governor Mitt Romney's economic development agency granted initial approval to a tax-exempt bond last year for a Planned Parenthood clinic in Worcester that will provide abortions, just two months before he left office and began highlighting his antiabortion position as a presidential candidate. more stories like this
Asked about the $5 million financial deal yesterday, the Romney campaign said the former governor was not aware it was under consideration when Planned Parenthood won preliminary approval in November 2006.
Romney repeatedly used the power of his office while governor to advance socially conservative positions, including restricting stem cell research, pushing abstinence-only sex education in schools, and vetoing a bill to increase access to emergency contraception in hospitals.
In the case of the abortion clinic funding deal, the Republican candidate's spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney would have attempted to block it - if he had known about it.
"Mitt Romney is prolife," Fehrnstrom said. "He did not know about this loan. It was made by an agency that does not report to the governor. If it did, he would have told them not to do it."
In additon to providing abortion services, the 10,000-square-foot Planned Parenthood clinic planned for Worcester will offer Plan B emergency contraception, also known as the "morning after pill," which also is opposed by antiabortion advocates.
Jeffrey M. Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University, said he was surprised that Romney and his aides did not catch such a politically sensitive financial deal making its way through his economic development agency. Now, Berry said, the campaign will be put in the position of defending Romney at a time when he is heading into the most critical days of his candidacy.
"It is unusual that his people at the agency did not find a reason not to fund Planned Parenthood," Berry said. "His administration was clearly focused on his run for the presidency and making sure there was no embarrassment like this. It was an administration that was pretty efficient getting everyone operating on the same page and avoiding scandal."
This is classic "Romney the hypocrite" in action. Religion for Mitt only matters when it's someone else's religion. He doesn't think it's important to include a Muslim in his administration because they just don't amount to any significant population in the US. While their population is admittedly small, how can any serious presidential candidate not find such inclusion a positive idea considering where we are today? Is it really that horrible that we - gasp! - include a representative who can broaden our horizons and provide feedback on reaching out to this community both at home and abroad?
I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."
Romney, whose Mormon faith has become the subject of heated debate in Republican caucuses, wants America to be blind to his religious beliefs and judge him on merit instead. Yet he seems to accept excluding Muslims because of their religion, claiming they're too much of a minority for a post in high-level policymaking. More ironic, that Islamic heritage is what qualifies them to best engage America's Arab and Muslim communities and to help deter Islamist threats.
Well, as long as they can carry Mitt's bags or perhaps sweep a floor or two. This is all quite interesting coming from a guy who belongs to a faith that barely represents 2% of the population, compared to the 1% in America who are Muslims. Are we really doing that well with our existing Muslim outreach programs that we can afford to exclude Muslims from senior positions in the next administration? Yes, he's the guy who cries "foul" when anyone discusses his Mormon faith (that he can't stop talking about) but he doesn't mind making a bigoted remark about Muslims. During our so-called war on terror, no less. How insulting, careless and downright offensive.
Well, if by "real" conservative these guys mean someone who lies about their positions and doesn't really believe in anything, then yes, Thompson and Romney are both real conservatives.
You have to give the guy credit for chutzpah, because he's possibly even more liberal than Rudy Giuliani - well, he "was" more liberal, until he decided to run for president and then had a series of epiphanies on every single issue, suddenly and amazingly converting to the uber-conservative view on everything. Though I do take a certain pleasure in seeing the Republican lie machine turn its guns on its own voters - just repeat a lie enough, and people will believe it. (By the way, did you hear that Romney is really a Christian?)
Larry Craig is having a busy week. He's got a big interview with Matt Lauer, he's appealing his court case and he's trashing Mitt Romney:
The senator also discussed his relationship with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Craig was Senate liaison for Romney's campaign, a post he abandoned when the scandal came to light.
"I was very proud of my association with Mitt Romney," Craig told Lauer. "... And he not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again."
Remember Bush, the first CEO President? That didn't really work out too well now, did it? Considering how badly American CEO's are enriching themselves at the expense of others, hmmm, maybe he's onto something though perhaps he might not want to brag too loudly on this point considering the mood towards CEOs bathing in riches while the rest of us live like, well, the rest of us. On the bright site of his latest pitch, he provides some quality entertainment and I have to give him credit for being able to make this denial while not laughing. Pretty impressive delivery, really.
"I'm not in this race for the next step in my political career. I don't have a political career, to tell you the truth," Romney said during a stop at Chapman University. "I've only been in politics four years as a governor. I loved the experience, but my life is my wife and my family. My career was building an enterprise, a business, with some other fellows."
Also of note here is the final line "with some fellows." Sounds like women will do well trying with a guy like this. What century is he living in? What a knuckle-dragging buffoon.
In all fairness to Mitt Romney, he was only 55 years old in 2002 when he was a flaming pro-gay politician hell-bent on sucking up to gay activists on pretty much every issue, and thus was distributing these fliers all over Boston. But hey, that was five years ago and Mitt was a younger man. We really shouldn't hold people's youthful indiscretions against them.
Mitt is seems freaked out about Thompson. This should get good and ugly:
"We all get the chance to go on the talk shows. But it's not the sort of questions you get in the debates or the town meetings that I've had," Romney said in an Associated Press interview, alluding to Thompson's planned appearance Wednesday on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Thompson is to officially enter the race Thursday.
"The talk show circuit is fine, but the town meetings show you're willing to listen to people and take their questions," continued Romney.
While Thompson, the "Law & Order" television actor and former senator from Tennessee, will be in Los Angeles for the Leno show Romney will be among the GOP contenders at a Wednesday night debate in Durham., N.H.
"I think it will boost the ratings for Jay Leno's show, but I'd rather be doing well in New Hampshire," Romney earlier told reporters before he marched in a Labor Day parade in Milford, N.H.
Romney also took a jab as Thompson's long delayed decision to become an official candidate for the GOP nomination.
"Well, I guess the only comment I'd make to Fred Thompson would be: Why the hurry? Why not take a little longer to think this over? From my standpoint, if he wants to wait until January or February, that would be ideal."
Responded Todd Harris, a Thompson spokesman: "People often use humor to try to mask the fact that they're nervous."
But he probably doesn't want to be at the top of this heap of results from Rasmussen (via Boston.com):
Mitt Romney finally has higher poll numbers than Hillary Clinton.
Unfortunately for the former Massachusetts governor's presidential hopes, the numbers are the percentage of voters who say they would definitely vote against him.
In a national poll released today, 44 percent of likely voters surveyed said they would definitely not support Romney if he were on the 2008 ballot, compared to the 43 percent who said they would definitely vote against Clinton.
And only 16 percent of those surveyed said they would definitely vote for Republican Romney, giving him a 28 percentage point gap between firm opposition and support. Democrat Clinton, the New York senator and former First Lady, only had a gap of 10 percentage points because 33 percent said they would definitely vote for her if she were on the 2008 ballot.
I guess I'm not the only one to mock Giuliani and Romney for their recent turnarounds on immigration:
Are Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani competing for the Republican Presidential nomination, or for the job of vacation replacement for Lou Dobbs? It's hard to tell these days as the candidates attempt to one-up each other's anti-immigration rhetoric.
Mr. Romney has faulted the former New York City mayor for not directing the local police to harass illegal-alien janitors, cooks and bus boys, thus making the Big Apple a so-called "sanctuary city" for the undocumented. Mr. Romney apparently doesn't think the NYPD has anything better to do with its time, though given the record drop in violent crime during the Giuliani years, which coincided with an increase in immigrants to the city, he might reconsider that notion.
Mr. Giuliani has responded by slouching toward Tom Tancredo, unveiling plans to tackle the immigration problem with ID cards, physical barriers and patrols along the Mexican border. But Mr. Giuliani's previous support for these newcomers, who've helped to revitalize New York over the past two decades, makes his more recent rhetoric seem like a gambit to neutralize Mr. Romney's appeals to the restrictionist right. At least Mr. Giuliani still stresses his interest in giving foreigners more opportunities to enter the U.S. lawfully.
This sentiment comes from that liberal rag, The Wall Street Journal (sub required). Giuliani and Romney both have a history of supporting immigration and they should not be allowed to shed their past just to sate the anti-immigrant passions of the right-wing base.
Let me get this straight. Rudy Giuliani can pontificate about MY family. He can retract his support for gay civil unions because of his judgment of the worth of my family. But when we look at Giuliani's family, in order to discern his family values, that's off limits.
Then there's Mitt Romney. He's running as the religious right candidate. He wants America to live under religious law. But don't ask Mitt about his own religion, Mormonism - the religion he's going to use as a basis for all those religious laws he's promising to pass. Oh no.
The extremists running the Republican party have two sets of values. The ones they live under, and the ones they expect YOU to live under. They spend like drunken sailors, but they expect you to tighten your belt. They send our troops off to wars based on a lie, without the proper equipment, and you hate the troops. They have more divorces and marriages and affairs than Zsa Zsa Gabor, but you're the threat to family values. And September 11 happens under their watch, but you're the one who's weak on terror.
Family values? I'd like to know if today's Republicans have ANY values.
Rudy and Romney are campaigning in New Hampshire today. Lately, there's been some controversy surrounding their description of public service. Romney stepped in it when he said his sons were serving the country by campaigning for him. Rudy got in trouble when he said he was basically a 9/11 rescue worker, so all those emergency responders who raced to the World Trade Center minutes after it collapsed, and now have the September 11 equivalent of Black Lung Disease, should just shut up, per Rudy. Both have now tried to spin their way out.
If Rudy and Romney want to meet some true American heroes, people who truly want to serve their country, they should stop by the Human Rights Campaign's Legacy of Service Tour, which is also in New Hampshire today. The tour is part of the campaign to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and is comprised of several vets who have left the military because of the bigoted, dangerous policy.
Both Rudy and Romney want to keep DADT. Funny thing is that both of them used to be supporters of gay rights. Big supporters of gay rights (some of us think they still are, but they're just flip-flopping to curry favor with the far-right that now controls the Republican party). Rudy used to dress in drag and lived for a while with a gay male couple. Romney used to brag that he was more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy. Then both men decided to run for president as Republicans and poof! - or should I say pooftah - both men suddenly found God, and he was a Southern Baptist.
Anyway, back to the tour. Unlike any of Romney's sons - you know, the ones who are making as much a sacrifice as our troops in Iraq by traveling around in a bus campaigning for dad - HRC's Eric Alva went to Iraq. He was the first American injured in the war. He's in New Hampshire today and has some questions for Rudy and Romney:
I call on Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney to justify their support for ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ when our nation is at war. Please explain to the 60,000 gay and lesbian troops on active duty why you seek to dishonor their service. For these candidates running to be the next commander in chief to dishonor the service of men and women standing on the streets of Baghdad and serving around the globe is shameful, and it jeopardizes national security. How can you expect to be the next president of the United States, to represent all the people of our country, and support this discriminatory policy that denies people the right to be who they are and serve openly in the armed forces?
Rudy and Romney won't answer Eric Alva or any of the other soldiers on the Legacy of Service tour. Eric and the other soldiers simply want to serve their country, but Romney, Giuliani and the other Republicans say no because it's what the far-right of the Republican part wants to hear. Rudy and Romney don't care if we have a shortage of troops. They don't care if we have a shortage of Arabic linguists. They don't care if the next 9/11 happens because we haven't translated crucial intelligence that is just sitting on some desk in Washington waiting to be examined. Rudy and Romney are now anti-gay - nudge nudge wink wink - so they support Don't Ask Don't Tell, to hell with what's best for America and our national security.
Mitt is the only holdout at this point. It will be great to see them sweat this one out. (WaPo):
In an interview with Manchester Union Leader, Romney said, "I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman."
That drew a video response from Billiam, the snowman who questioned the Democrats on global warming last month in their YouTube debate. This time, he riffed on another Romney quote from the campaign: "Lighten up slightly."
...Many of the questions already submitted for the GOP candidates, from a diverse set of YouTubers, are thoughtful. A 21-year-old asks the thrice-married Rudy Giuliani if he really has the character for the presidency. A 26-year-old Mormon asks Romney, also a Mormon, to explain his changing views on abortion. A 69-year-old asks how the candidates to detail their plans to reduce the size of the U.S. government.
So, the first real test of the 2008 Presidential campaign came and went in Ames, Iowa. And what did we really learn?
Is Romney the new frontrunner? Not really. He allegedly spent a ton of money to outpace Huckabee and Brownback. I know he's supposed to be an excellent business man, but I'm not sure he's making good investments.
No, what we really learned this past weekend is that the GOP is depressed. The turnout in Iowa for this straw poll was pathetic, much worse than the last competitive primary in 1999. This is good news for the Democratic nominee, as long as they don't screw it up:
For starters, turnout this year declined sharply from the 1999 straw poll. That year, more than 23,000 Iowans--only Iowans are allowed to vote, though anyone is welcome to come to Ames--cast ballots. On Saturday, only 14,302 votes were cast. Why should an event that draws only 14,000 people be given the significance the straw poll receives.
Mitt Romney finally has higher poll numbers than Hillary Clinton.