Redstate

Posted at 11:08am on May 1, 2008 The McCain Veepstakes Rules

Please Consult This List Before Touting Your Favorite Choice

By Dan McLaughlin

The hottest topic in Republican circles, ever since John McCain iced the nomination, is who he should pick as his running mate. There are many interesting names floated, and McCain will have good reason to make a show of talking to a bunch of candidates for the job, as a way of courting different groups and party leaders and feeling out people who might end up with other jobs in his Administration.

But realistically, there are a number of constraints on what kind of candidate McCain can or should pick. The Vice Presidency isn't like other appointments, since he or she is independently elected and can't be fired. And McCain's choice will be of particular significance for a few reasons. First, because of his age, voters will want more assurance than usual that his running mate is ready to step into the job at a moment's notice. Second, also because of McCain's age, he's seen as less likely to serve two terms; his running mate, win or lose in 2008, will have a leg up to be the heir apparent in 2012. And third, many conservatives are unhappy with McCain as the party leader, and want to see that the moderates have not taken permanent control of the party.

Let's start with the Don'ts, which will be especially important in this process. I'm not saying that McCain will necessarily follow these rules, but he should and I suspect he will. And I'm not saying that it's impossible that he will take someone who breaks them, but it will be a very heavy burden to overcome, and probably fatal for anyone who violates more than one of them. (This list is not necessarily presented in any particular order of importance).

More below the fold...

Posted in 2008 | Condoleezza Rice | John McCain | Mark Sanford | Mitt Romney | Tim Pawlenty | Veepstakes — Comments (297)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:20am on Apr. 2, 2008 I Miss Mitt

By Michelle Oddis

Mitt Romney on America's Newsroom this morning

Hemmer: Alot of people are writing about how much damage is being done to Democrats. Do you believe that?

Romney: It is hard to tell how much real damage has been done because it is so early. Both Democrats are trying to convince us that the other is unelectable, and I agree with both of them.

Hemmer: I know you were with John McCain last week. Did you talk much about the economy? Alot of people think it is a sore spot for him.

Posted in Archived | Mitt Romney — Comments (12) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:19pm on Mar. 20, 2008 Hear No Good. See No Good. Say No Good.

By bluegrassredstate

Iraq will never be good enough for American Democrats. That is the lesson that the world should be learning right now. When the New York Times is printing stories that contain actual truths such as this one:

A member of Iraq’s Presidency Council, whose objections had blocked a law calling for provincial elections by October, withdrew his objections on Wednesday in a sudden turnaround that raised hopes for long-sought political progress.

Posted in 2008 | Chuck Schumer | Iraq | John McCain | Mitt Romney — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:37am on Feb. 15, 2008 MI Morning Update: Romney Endorses McCain - Obama, "Candidate of Chang-" ing Rhetoric - MI GOP Convention Starts Tonight

By saul anuzis

265 Days until Election Day

MORNING UPDATE:

Governor Mitt Romney endorsed Senator John McCain for the Republican nomination…encouraging his delegates, finance team and activists to join the McCain team heading into November.

"This is a man who tied his political fortunes to the fortunes of his country in a time of war," Romney said. "Such courage is not always rewarded in politics, but it was this time – and that is a credit to both the man and to the party he will lead in the election of 2008."

Posted in Barack Obama | John McCain | Michigan Republican Party | Mitt Romney | Republicans | Saul Anuzis | State Convention — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:12pm on Feb. 8, 2008 Jon Alter: Perot backs Romney

It's a good thing Mitt didn't ask Ross to join him on the stump!

By Mark Kilmer

Ross Perot has been a political cipher since 1992, but he's had his impact and made a lot of folks smile. But it doesn't seem as if he gets out much these days.

If we are to believe a word written by Newsweek's Jon Alter, Ross Perot called him up the other day to complain that John McCain was reviled by former Prisoners of War and was covering up the fact that many of them from the Vietnam War had been transported to the Soviet Union for medical experiments.

Ross Perot says he will vote for Mitt Romney in the March 4 Texas Presidential primary:

"When I went to the Naval Academy and met my first Mormons I asked why so many were excellent officers," Perot recalls. "I learned it was because of their strong family unit."

Perot also said he couldn't back Barack Obama, according to Alter, because Obama was "a Mormon." Alter explained that Obama was a "Christian, not a Muslim," and Perot said that he had read otherwise on the internet but now felt better about the whole thing.

For me at least, Ross Perot, with his charming buffoonery, has taken some of the edge off of some of the intra-party reaction to this week's electoral events.

Posted in 2008 | John McCain | Mitt Romney | Ross Perot — Comments (8)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:00am on Feb. 8, 2008 MI Morning Update: Romney suspends campaign, MI Romney delegates now uncommitted

By saul anuzis

272 Days until Election Day

MORNING UPDATE:

At CPAC this weekend:

We brought TWO busloads of College Republicans out to CPAC to take part in the action!!!

Senator John McCain is clearly the presumptive nominee…the talk at CPAC was should the party rally behind him sooner rather than later and get our campaign against either Senators Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama going?!?

Governor Mitt Romney “set aside” or suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination and all but committed to work on behalf for Senator McCain…his reason…for the good of the country. We can’t afford Clinton or Obama!!!

Posted in 2008 Presidential Campaign | CPAC | Michigan Republicans | Mitt Romney | Republicans — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:18am on Feb. 8, 2008 Ruffini on Romney, Inc.

By Ben Domenech

Patrick Ruffini continues his series of "what we can learn as they leave" posts (his Rudy and Fred ones were excellent), with this one on what the Romney campaign did right and what they did wrong:

In fairness to Team Romney, they did more right than not. They rose from single digits in the national polls to receiving 32% of the primary votes cast to date. They became the conservative establishment’s choice. They leveraged mechanical and resource superiority into solid leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, giving Rudy Giuliani pause about competing in the early states and chasing John McCain from Iowa. They leveraged their candidate’s mastery of pat, 60-second answers into dominance (and rising poll numbers) out of the first debates. They met their goal of winning Ames, and got a bump. They met their goal of 30,000 votes in the Iowa Caucus.

Posted at 6:35pm on Feb. 7, 2008 Mitt, We Hardly Knew Thee

We love you Mittens Kthxbai

By Ben Domenech

We can all agree on this at least: we are sad to see how things turned out for Mitt Romney, but respect his speech today at CPAC, which serves as a sign of what might have been, in some alternate American universe. Josh Trevino's take, though, is acidic and accurate:

In the run-up to, and aftermath of, the shocking Huckabee victory in Iowa, the Romney-aligned media responded to the overreaction within the Romney campaign itself by going nuclear against the Arkansan. This was a critical error, especially as there was some chance that Romney could have made signifiant inroads into the Huckabee base — see, for example, the Florida exits breakdown I analyzed, in which Romney actually won social conservatives in meaningful numbers.

Instead of paying respect to Huckabee and his message, Romney’s media surrogates delivered a contemptuous broadside, in effect saying: “You support an ignorant cretin, and you are yourselves rubes who like God too much — and we suspect many of you are bigots — but Mitt Romney is on your side!” Political scientists will doubtless labor for years to come trying to figure out why this didn’t work.

I know I speak for all the RS Directors when I say that we wish Mitt all the best in his future endeavors.

Posted in 2008 | Mitt Romney | Save the Last Round for the Windows | The Hard Goodbye | Trevino — Comments (33)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:06pm on Feb. 7, 2008 Re: RE: In case you were wondering

By Dan McLaughlin

I disagree, Jeff. Mitt could have said he was coming home to the state he was born and raised in because Michigan needs him (which would have been true). He would have had to run on basically the same positions as in this race. He would probably have needed to promise not to run in 2012, but could keep his eyes on 2016, which given his health and vigor is not implausible (he'd be 68). And if he could actually have become the second American (after Sam Houston) to become GOV of two states and then turned around the MI business climate while staying essentially faithful to his currently stated principles, he would have been able to make a convincing case down the road as a tested, proven leader.

Posted at 1:55pm on Feb. 7, 2008 RE: On Mitt dropping out

By Dan McLaughlin

I may expand on this later...I am sympathetic to the people who bought into the idea of the Romney campaign but, as happened to those of us who backed Rudy or Fred, the time has come to accept that the reality of the campaign was never what it was cracked up to be. In Mitt's case, he just wasn't the champion of conservative principles and enforcer of conservative orthodoxy he played on the trail. He was and is a pragmatic businessman, and a very good one. I have argued that Rudy should have sold a modified position on Roe v Wade not as a change of heart but as a principled compromise. A similar approach might have worked for Mitt as well on some of the issues he shifted on. Instead, while Rudy wouldn't move far enough, Mitt tried too hard on too many fronts and ended up with nobody believing that he was the guy he was running as.

A hamburger is a delicious and popular meal. A grilled chicken sandwich is nutritious and reasonably tasty. You can sell a hamburger, and you can sell a grilled chicken sandwich; both have their virtues. But as anyone with a marketing background could have told you, you can't get people to buy a grilled chicken sandwich by convincing them that it is a hamburger.

Posted at 1:39pm on Feb. 7, 2008 Mitt Romney 2008, RIP.

By Leon H Wolf

Multiple sources, including CNN, are reporting that Mitt Romney will "suspend" his campaign today. I presume that this means that they are packing up and going home, subject to resurrection if John McCain gets struck by lightning or something. And so the race for the nomination is down to two, and with Romney out of the way, we can probably expect Huckabee to fold up shop soon as well.

This was the right move at this time for the Romney campaign, given that the delegate math has made it virtually impossible for Romney to win. Better this than a long and self-destructive protest campaign ending at the convention - a route that would certainly have torpedoed Romney's chances of ever running again.

Below the fold, I will attempt to write an obituary for the Romney campaign from my own conflicted perspective...

Posted in 2008 | Mitt Romney — Comments (75)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:07pm on Feb. 7, 2008 In Case You Were Wondering

By Dan McLaughlin

I had been thinking that, with Mitt Romney possibly poised to exit the race soon and likely to be looking for what to do next to build credibility with conservatives, a logical next step whether he intends to pursue national office or simply find a way to do some real public good would be to move back home to Michigan and run for Governor. After all, Romney's core strength - his business acumen - is the one thing Michigan needs most desperately after two terms of Jennifer Granholm.

Sadly, however, Michigan's Constitution requires that the Governor must "have been a registered elector in this state for four years next preceding his election." Since the next race is in 2010, there will not be sufficient time for Romney to establish residency. My guess is, the likelihood is that if Romney is planning to run for president again, he will probably do so via the John Edwards path of spending four more years campaigning without adding to his short resume in public office and thus without a realistic mechanism for proving his conservative bona fides.

Posted at 11:07am on Feb. 6, 2008 Counting California Delegates, Part 2

By Neil Stevens

McCain 164, Romney 6, as of 7:00am. I was way off, having expected Romney to take in the neighborhood of 40 delegates. This could shift, as a few close races are still counting, so Romney could take another 9-12 delegates if things go well for him in the right districts. In any case, it's a landslide, and nearly as good for McCain as winner take all.

Posted at 11:46pm on Feb. 5, 2008 Mitt Romney May Still Be Bread But He Tastes Awful Crispy [comments enabled]

By Dan McLaughlin

I just watched Romney's speech, and I gotta say, he sure sounded like he was giving a concession speech. His family looked, and his crowd sounded, like this is the end. And he sounded like his heart wasn't in it - rushing his delivery, not stopping for applause lines.

Romney's not winning the winner-take-all blue states tonight, which are breaking big for McCain. And he's running third in a lot of the southern or border-south red states, which are breaking for Huckabee. Now, we'll wait until the smoke clears before we write any obituaries, but if Romney doesn't win much outside his home bases of Massachusetts and Utah tonight, I don't know how he stays a credible candidate. There's no bronze medals given out in a three-man race.