A Second Hand Conjecture

Curious what Mitt Romney’s take was on Sarah Palin? Nah, me neither. But if you were, where else would you turn but to Hugh Hewitt.

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Thankfully Pawlenty is out, Romney is out, and Matt Drudge is dropping a big tease that it might be Sarah Palin for Vice President after all. I personally would forgive McCain three decades of criticism if he selected her. It would constitute a genuinely visionary decision, for this election and the future of the Republican party. And, it should be said, one very much outside McCain’s normal comfort zone.

CNN is reporting that a plane has left Anchorage for Dayton, Ohio carrying the governor of Alaska. Hmm.

Alaska news is unable to confirm the flight carried the governor however.

ABC News’ Kate McCarthy says Palin is in Wasilla, Alaska. Uh-oh.

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It’s time to put “grassroots” in quotation marks for Mike Huckabee’s campaign. Renaissance Ruminations is being harassed by slimy disclaimerless robo-calls and push polls, from liberation theology central. An irritated Riley at Virginia Virtucon, who is experiencing the same problem, made his views known to the Huckabot: “The call cut off once I started giving answers such as “‘No way, no how’ and ‘Bite me.’” According to Riley, the Huckabee campaign is still complaining about Mitt Romney in these calls too. Huckabee’s un-Christian habit for harboring unreasonable and vindictive grudges, is not doing much to improve his well -earned reputation as a scoundrel, among non-soc-con Republicans.

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Via The Las Vegas Sun.

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Out of total Super Tuesday primary votes:
Democratic votes for Clinton and Obama: 14,622,822 (63.6%)
Republican votes for McCain, Romney and Huckabee: 8,370,022 (36.4%)
(Time via Dinocrat)

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Photo: Wolfgang Staudt

Ken at Oblogatory Anecdotes, along with many other Mormon Romney supporters, is naturally very disappointed about Mitt’s withdrawal from the Republican race. Like many Mormons Ken is convinced Romney was defeated “for the most part because of his affiliation with Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.” But unlike some, Ken places the blame squarely and solely on everyone’s favorite liberation theologist, Mike Huckabee.

Ken goes so far as to say that “Huckabee’s main motivation for entering and staying in the race is his hatred of Mormons.” While that’s clearly a bit much, it’s a view he says is commonly held among Mormons in Utah. Ken goes on to predict that Utah may vote Democrat if Huckabee is named he VP by McCain. While Utah deserting the GOP for Hillary or Obama seems like a fantastically remote possibility, consider that in the state, opposition to Huckabee is indeed very fierce. In the Utah primary the crypto-theocrat finished dead last (behind even Ronpaul), with a mere 1% of the vote. The worst defeat Huckabee has suffered anywhere.

It’s just a thought, but it might be useful for secular and economic conservative opponents of Huckabee to explore an alliance with concerned Mormons, to exert pressure on the McCain campaign to resist the temptation for the dreaded “ecumenical reform coalition.” Surely it is asking too much of loyal Republican Mormons in Utah to vote for a man they widely perceive to be a bigot against their faith. Of course, McCain has rarely proven sensitive to pressure from within the party, so it may be a useless exercise.

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Romney is going to quit the race. Or “suspending” his campaigning, whatever that means. Looking at the results so far, this would give McCain the nomination, and leave him to go on the offensive against either of the potential Democratic candidates. Given Romney’s performance as noted below, there’s not really much to do, other then making nice and dropping out.

I would say that ‘conservatives’ have proved that they aren’t the core of the Parties voting base.

http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008/02/07/time-magazine-blog-romney-to-quit-today/

Mitt Romney will drop out of the Republican presidential race during his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday, FOX News has confirmed.

Romney is “suspending” his campaign and will say so “during his speech,” a top aide told FOX News.

The news was sure to come as a blow to the CPAC audience, who appeared largely unaware of the former Massachusetts governor’s plan in the minutes before his speech.

Looking at the numbers, McCain has done far better then any other candidate in states with closed primaries.

85% of the delegates from states with Closed Primaries is nothing to sneeze at.

UPDATE:

For the good of the Party, and the good of the country… at least he gets it.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8ULK3JG1&show_article=1

John McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday as chief rival Mitt Romney suspended his faltering presidential campaign.

“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. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror,” Romney will say at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

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Haven’t had a chance to look at them, but here are the responses.

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With Romney’s odds of winning the nomination now highly improbable, and the press directly asking Huckabee if he wants to be Vice President, the McCain-Huckabee alliance many of us have longed feared is now quite visible on the horizon. Even worse though, is the distinct possibility that this ghastly marriage of factions is in fact representative of the party.

(more…)

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McCain may be the front runner, but it is still anyone’s game going into next Tuesday. And the race can be just as muddled after next Tuesday, if there’s not a clear front runner.

And yes, it’s my contention that at this time, there isn’t a clear front runner. Just look at the numbers:

McCain – 93
Romney – 59
Huckabee – 40

I know some will look at that and think McCain has a tremendous lead on Romney. Except that the goal is 1191 delegates to get the Republican nomination. So, as a percentage of goal the candidates are currently at:

McCain – 7.8%
Romney – 5.0%
Huckabee – 3.4%

Now, between Super Tuesday puts 1102 delegates in play (including 21 for Maine this Friday.) I doubt that any candidate is going to sweep 22 states.

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