Romney’s shocker
Photo by Evan Vucci/APÂ
It started as a buzz this morning throughout the media that Gov. Mitt Romney would be dropping out of the race today at the major C-PAC event, the Conservative Political Action Conference, the powerfully influential summit of conservative leadership in America. When Romney came to the podium to deliver his talk, the crowd went wild. This was their man, evidently, and they stood to deliver a rousing encouragement for him to carry on their principles and values.
Romney’s address was energized and spirited and….better than most of his campaign speeches, it seemed. It was purposeful and intent on the job at hand the way Romney fixes his attention on the productive way to run an organization. But the job at hand for him has changed for now, he said.
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.Â
I will continue to stand for conservative principles; I will fight alongside you for all the things we believe in.
The C-PAC crowd, and many leading conservative thinkers, believed Romney best stood for what they believe in. His speech only reaffirmed that.
What is it about American culture that has led us to become the most powerful nation in the history of the world? We believe in hard work and education. We love opportunity: almost all of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants who came here for opportunity-opportunity is in our DNA. Americans love God, and those who don’t have faith, typically believe in something greater than themselves-a “Purpose Driven Life.” And we sacrifice everything we have, even our lives, for our families, our freedoms and our country. The values and beliefs of the free American people are the source of our nation’s strength and they always will be!
   The threat to our culture comes from within. The 1960’s welfare programs created a culture of poverty. Some think we won that battle when we reformed welfare, but the liberals haven’t given up. At every turn, they try to substitute government largesse for individual responsibility. They fight to strip work requirements from welfare, to put more people on Medicaid, and to remove more and more people from having to pay any income tax whatsoever. Dependency is death to initiative, risk-taking and opportunity. Dependency is a culture-killing drug-we have got to fight it like the poison it is!ÂThe attack on faith and religion is no less relentless.
Watching this live, you could feel the almost palpable despair that this standard bearer of sorts is stepping down to join their ranks instead of lead them. Though, they weren’t able to deliver enough support to keep Romney in the race.
Interestingly, the media starting reporting immediately that Romney had “suspended” his candidacy, as if it were on hold.
John McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday as chief rival Mitt Romney suspended his faltering presidential campaign. “I must now stand aside, for our party and our country,” Romney told conservatives.
“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 Sen. Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror,” …
There were shouts of astonishment, with some moans and others yelling, “No, No.”
Shock waves are rattling the media, both mainstream and conservative talk radio. By the end of his show today, Rush Limbaugh said he had probably received a record number of emails today from listeners, a great many of them crushed and angry.
The anger is largely at Sen. John McCain, the party’s presumptive nominee at this point. His address to that crowd is next…
