Romney Drops Out!

I had a 'holy shit!' moment today when I opened up Reuters. The article that stared me in the face was this one: Romney Quits Race.

So it seems that Mitt Romney, despite not being so behind that he couldn't have squeaked a victory through, decided that the best thing for the party would be for him to drop out and get someone anointed victor as soon as possible.

...Or did he?

Where's The McCain Endorsement?

Everyone has assumed that Romney will endorse John McCain any time now, but he hasn't done so yet, and I'll tell you why: Because if Huckabee does well in the next few primaries, then Mitt Romney can throw his weight -- and his delegates -- on Huckabee's side, and suddenly the republicans are looking at a brokered convention where Huckabee might come out the victor.

Does Huckabee have a shot? He may. There are a lot of states that he might have won, if he hadn't been splitting the vote with Mitt Romney, although then again, maybe some of Romney's supporters would have gone over to McCain if Romney hadn't been in the race. But without Romney splitting the far right wing vote, it may be that Huckabee will have a chance at winning enough states to make him a player.

In addition, McCain is having a hard time bringing the conservative wing of the Republican party to his side; many of the popular conservative talk show hosts are practically foaming at the mouth over his possible nomination. Ann Coulter, that crazy republican ghoul raised from the dead to torment America, has said that she'll support Hillary Clinton over John McCain, and many callers to conservative talk shows have said that they will sit out the election, or vote for Hillary Clinton if John McCain is the nominee. If these people take their displeasure to the polls and vote for the candidate who is not John McCain, Huckabee might see enough of a comeback for Romney's delegates to make a difference.

The whole thing is going to boil down to who gets Texas. On the one hand, Texas isn't a hotbed of the religious right the way that some states in the south are. On the other hand, immigration is a big issue there. Romney won in a state with similar central issues, California, and Texas isn't nearly as liberal. We don't have many "real republicans" here. So Huckabee has a real chance at taking the state, and all of its delegates.

Of course, Mitt Romney can't endorse Huckabee until he gets an idea of where the wind is blowing, as he, like Edwards, might be holding out for a seat on the ticket as the VP candidate, to balance out McCain and rally the party. In that case, endorsing Huckabee would anger the McCain camp and generally be a bad idea.

Sad to See Romney Go

Romney's loss is a disappointment to me. I was hoping to see him as the nominee, because if we had to have a republican president, I'd want Romney. It would be delicious fun to watch the religious right shit themselves for four years over a Mormon president. I wonder if he would have insisted on being sworn in on the Book of Mormon? (Probably not, but it would have been hilarious.)

I think it says something that part assumes that the democrats are going to manage, somehow, to lose.

It's interesting to me that by stubbornly staying in the race in what he's got to know is a lost cause, Huckabee has essentially shot his party interests in the foot. There are a lot of states that Romney would have won if the socially conservative arm of the Republican party hadn't been split between him and Mike Huckabee. Now, while he still has a slim chance at the nomination, Huckabee has eliminated the chance of Romney being a sure thing.

Disaster for the Democrats

John McCain's nomination is disaster for the Democrats, especially with the possibility remaining that we might, in our idiocy, nominate Hillary Clinton. As I have said before, Hillary Clinton's only chance in hell of being elected if she's running against McCain would be if McCain died on the campaign trail. Even worse, the Hillary and Obama (well, mostly Hillary) will continue to attack each other as the primary season trudges on, while John McCain will have several attack-free months to begin rallying support and trying to get his party together. He's going to look great, doing his victory laps and raising money without having to spend it while Clinton and Obama bankrupt themselves. Even Obama might not be able to defeat McCain if the democrats push things to a brokered convention.

Which is why, for the good of the party, Hillary Clinton ought to step out of the race. She has no chance of beating McCain if she gets the nomination, and every day she continues to fight and attack Obama with every play out of Karl Rove's book lessens Obama's chances of doing so. On the other hand, if she abandoned a real possibility of becoming the nominee and immediately endorsed Obama, giving some kind of inspiring speech about how she has so much faith that he'd be as good a President as she that she's willing to abandon her chances of becoming the nominee in order to give him a better chance of winning the general election, she'd solidify all of her support behind him, and give his support another boost from the triumph. The convention could serve as it's meant to serve, as a coronation ceremony, complete with the anointing with oils and the washing of feet, and Obama could go about the business of trouncing McCain. Well, maybe not trouncing, but in such a situation, with a united democratic party, while McCain struggled to unite a divided republican base and fend off Obama's charisma, he'd win.

Not convinced? Rush Limbaugh is. He has sworn that he will raise money for Hillary Clinton because she's the only chance of uniting the republican party behind John McCain. Normally, I don't pay attention to a word coming out of that fat windbag's mouth, but I'm willing to postulate that if anyone knows the loonies of the right, it's him.

But Hillary Clinton is a self-interested witch who will do anything for the nomination. (She actually welcomed Ann Coulter's support!) She has shown that she's willing to use ugly tactics against Obama, despite the damage it would do to him if he were to become the nominee. In fact, her camp took the tactics so far that they started alienating their supporters, and that's the only thing that stopped them. There's no way she's going to drop out, and she might cost the party the election.

I might become a republican, just because I'm getting tired of my side losing all the time!

And Now for Something Completely Different

Enough with the depressing stuff. It's time for lighter news -- because whenever things look dark, John Stewart and Stephen Colbert are there to help us laugh at ourselves!

As the writer's strike drags on, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Conan O'Brian have come up with a creative way to maintain viewer interest in their shows. (Although John Stewart and Stephen Colbert's shows are about as funny as they usually are, even without writers. The extreme pollsters video had me in tears, I was laughing so hard..)

Anyway, what they've done is create a conflict between their shows, a grudge match, if you will. John Stewart and Stephen Colbert vs. Conan O'Brien.

It all started when Stephen Colbert claimed to have "made" Mike Huckabee by having him on his show and giving him the coveted "Colbert bump". Then, Conan O'Brien, on HIS show, claimed to have "made" Stephen Colbert by mentioning him on network television. This led to John Stewart playing a clip from his old show on MTV, where he had a pre-fame Conan O'Brien on the show in an interview, thus having "made" Conan O'Brien, and through him Stephen Colbert, and through him Mike Huckabee. Finally, Conan O'Brien, in what can only be described as an Irish rage, claimed to have been the doctor who delivered both John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and went on to threaten to kick some Comedy Central ass if either John Stewart or Stephen Colbert mentioned it again.

So what did the ever-combative Stephen Colbert do? He mentioned it again. Which led to, as John Stewart put it afterward, the stupidest thing ever broadcast on late night television. But it was also hilarious. For your viewing pleasure, I present it here:



Who won? America. Will the fight go on? Depends on how long the writer's strike lasts. How will this fight effect Mike Huckabee's campaign? Only time will tell.