Election 2008: Romney Resigns

Officially, the Democrats, who polled 15 million votes this week compared with 11 million for Republican candidates, say their continuing contest is not an issue.

"I think it would be a problem if Senator Clinton's voters disliked me or my voters disliked Senator Clinton," Mr Obama said. "But I don't think that's the case."

However, many Democrats fear a drawn-out race will harm the party. Mr Obama is expected to win in the Washington area next week, with Mrs Clinton then making gains in Ohio and Texas in March.

For the Republicans, all now depends on Mr Huckabee, the last conservative left in the race.

MITT Romney dramatically suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination yesterday, placing John McCain in prime position.

The surprise move by the former Massachusetts governor puts pressure on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to wrap up their struggle for the Democratic nomination early.

Mr Romney said he had taken the decision because continuing his battle with Mr McCain would weaken his party, increasing the chances of a Democrat victory which would mean a "surrender to terror".

In what was the most passionate speech of Mr Romney's campaign, he said he was making the sacrifice for the common good. "If I fight on all the way to convention, I forestall the launch of a national campaign and, frankly, I would be making it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win," he said. "Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."

The Super Tuesday primaries had left him with 270 delegates to Mr McCain's 680. The multi-millionaire had said he needed a minimum of 400 to stay in the race. He keeps his delegates, but he can't order them to vote for someone else at the convention.

Money was not his problem: he had already pumped an estimated £15 million into his campaign from his own funds. Rather, Tuesday left him facing an impossible task – trying to win liberal voters from Mr McCain while appealing to the hardline conservative support of third-placed Mike Huckabee.

Mr Romney told a conservative conference in Washington yesterday: "Conservative principles are needed now more than ever. Soon, the face of liberalism in America will have a new name. Whether it is Barack or Hillary, the result will be the same.

"The opponents of American culture will push the throttle."

Mr Romney, a Mormon, addressed what he saw as Europe's problems as he called on the US to approve a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages. "Europe is facing a demographic disaster," he said. "That's the inevitable product of weakened faith in the Creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of human life and eroded morality."

Huckabee in 08 Race is riding low on Resources

"We're there every day," Huckabee told MSNBC on Wednesday. "There are some news reports that are totally false -- I don't know who's fueling them -- that say that we are pulling out of Florida. And that's total nonsense."

Despite his lack of resources, Huckabee said he is ready to compete in Florida.

Huckabee's inability to turn his under-financed Iowa campaign, backed by a motivated network of evangelicals and home-schoolers, into a broad-based groundswell of support means he is short of campaign cash as he heads into the Florida Republican Primary January 29.

Mike Huckabee is working hard to keep his "scrappy little army" on the march, but with a disappointing second-place finish in South Carolina and in the middle of a resource-draining fight in Florida, the former Arkansas governor is having difficulties keeping his troops moving forward.

"And I think it's just one of those things that we're having to battle back, because we think Florida is in play," Huckabee said. "But we also know there are a whole lot of states out there."

On the campaign trail, Huckabee said he was comfortable with his position.

"Nobody thought we would even be in the game," Huckabee said Tuesday during an anti-abortion rally in Atlanta, Georgia. "People are talking about us in every national poll at either number one or number two. I'd call that a pretty good momentum for us.

"Our scrappy little army's doing pretty well out there on the battlefield," he added.

The signs the Huckabee campaign is starting to hurt for resources, however, are beginning to mount.

On Monday, the campaign announced it had grounded a chartered airplane it had provided to members of the press covering him, and Tuesday, Huckabee's campaign chairman Ed Rollins said Huckabee's top advisers are either working without pay or have left the campaign, according to The Associated Press.

"Most people are staying on," Rollins told the AP, but he said "a number of people, including myself," are forgoing their salaries to allow the campaign to buy television advertising.

Huckabee said the cutbacks just mean he is being prudent financially.

"The reason we cut some cost is because we've always operated in the black, we don't borrow money, unlike some of the other candidates who can write a big fat personal check and pay for everything -- I can't," Huckabee said Tuesday. "So what we recognized was that our primary goal right now is to get nimble, to get quick, to get where we can get from place to place as quickly as possible."

"I think a lot of folks would like to see the next president treat the taxpayers' money as frugally as we're treating campaign money," he said.

The departure of former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson from the Republican presidential race Tuesday may provide new momentum to Huckabee, but there is no guarantee.

With Thompson out, Huckabee is the only Southerner among the top-tier Republican candidates, but the social conservatives who were drawn to Thompson's advocacy of "traditional" social values are just as likely to back former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has diligently courted social conservatives, as Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher.

"Fred Thompson really made an appeal to social conservatives, and those folks might naturally like Mike Huckabee," said Gloria Borger, CNN senior political analyst. "But Huckabee's campaign is running on fumes right now, and conservatives know it."

Thompson's decision to leave the race after his third place showing in Saturday's Republican primary in South Carolina may have been too late -- at least for Huckabee. Huckabee's loss to McCain, a senator from Arizona, in South Carolina was due to the social conservative vote being split between him and Thompson.

"It would have been helpful if he had done this before. Now if the rest of them will drop out, we'll really be happy," Huckabee joked Tuesday.

"I'm in much better shape than some of the candidates who've spent tens of millions of dollars, and they're way behind us," Huckabee said. "I'd much rather be where I am with the amount of resources we've had than where some of these guys are with the kind of resources they've spent."

While Huckabee supporters hope his message, which mixes conservative social values with economic populism, will spawn another surprise in Florida, the best bet for Huckabee may be for the Republican race to stay jumbled after the Florida primary, when the race moves to the the Super Tuesday contests that include less expensive Southern states such as Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and his home state of Arkansas.

It's Trailing in Florida for Giuliani in 08

"I think we're cracking through, but we'll see," Giuliani said.

According to pollsters, there's not much leeway in Florida. Compared to the other early contests, Florida has a relatively small number of undecided voters.

"I'm not sure he can make up that kind of ground between now and Tuesday," Adair said.

Giuliani will have a chance to go head-to-head with his rivals in a debate Thursday night, where he's expected to be on the attack in attempt to show he's still viable.

Two new polls out Thursday show Giuliani competing for third in Florida -- tied with barely-present Mike Huckabee and behind John McCain and Mitt Romney.

Giuliani, who has finished in the single digits in every contest so far, largely skipped the early voting states to focus on Florida and the Super Tuesday states voting on February 5.

The former New York mayor once led in Florida and most national polls, but his plummeting numbers are causing some to question his strategy.

"Rudy has fallen like the Dow Jones industrial average," said Bill Adair, chief editor of the St. Petersburg Times. "What's happened is he gambled on Florida and put all his chips on Florida, and it's beginning to look like he gambled wrong."

"What he miscalculated on is McCain and Romney and Huckabee all come with some momentum into Florida because they won other states, and Rudy doesn't have momentum," he said.

So far, McCain has won New Hampshire and South Carolina; Romney took Wyoming, Nevada and Michigan; and Huckabee came in first in Iowa.

Giuliani has revamped his message for Floridians. Early in his campaign, he portrayed himself as America's mayor, calling attention to his leadership following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Giuliani's poor finishes have cast doubt on his viability, Adair said on CNN's "American Morning."

"What he miscalculated on is McCain and Romney and Huckabee all come with some momentum into Florida because they won other states, and Rudy doesn't have momentum," he said.

So far, McCain has won New Hampshire and South Carolina; Romney took Wyoming, Nevada and Michigan; and Huckabee came in first in Iowa.

Giuliani has revamped his message for Floridians. Early in his campaign, he portrayed himself as America's mayor, calling attention to his leadership following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

"The very best things we could do is a major stimulus package that would lower taxes, and lower taxes dramatically," Giuliani said in Orlando, Florida, on Monday.

"And that's why I proposed the largest tax reduction in American history."

As concerns about the economy top the worries of Republican voters, Giuliani's launched an ad that touts his fiscal record as mayor, and he's been touting his plans to cut taxes.

Giuliani tells anyone who will listen -- he's the one with "proven leadership." There, his challenge is McCain of Arizona, who in a new Florida ad says, "There's no one more qualified to meet our national security threats. I've been dealing with these issues my entire adult life."

And Romney's hoping he can resonate with Floridians when it comes to the economy.

"I will go to Washington using the experience I have in the private sector -- in the real economy -- to strengthen our economy," the former Massachusetts governor said.

Giuliani on Wednesday told CNN's Larry King that he expects the polls to break his way this weekend.

But a break might not be enough. In a survey conducted for the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times and Bay News 9, Giuliani only registers 15 percent among Republican primary voters. That puts him in a tie with Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, who has spent little time in the state and has only a fraction of the organization Giuliani has there.

McCain and Romney are statistically tied for the top: McCain at 25 percent and Romney at 23 percent.

Giuliani also finds himself in third place in a new American Research Group poll with 16 percent, a statistical tie with Huckabee's 17 percent. McCain leads that poll with 29 percent and Romney is second with 22 percent.

The Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9 poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.1 percentage points, while the ARG poll's margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Both were conducted January 20-22.

The Field of Competition in 08 Elections

When it comes right down to it there are a lot of choices in the up and coming election but there are only a handful of smart ones. The republican side has it's 1 or 2 potential candidates and the Democrats have their 2. The question is who is going to come out the victor and who will be spoiled?

The problem for everyone other than Obama is that they are all telling us how bad the world is and how much danger we face and how only they are qualified to protect us. This is a kind of K-Mart version of Bush’s entire administration and Hillary sells it with as much fervor as does Rudy G.

Whomever the Republicans nominate is doomed, not just by the tsunami that Obama is surfing so well but by association with Mr. Bush. John McCain, who embraced the president after having his reputation trashed by him, has the scent of a warmonger on his lapels when he suggests he would have approved the Iraq invasion even without WMD. McCain, who would be the oldest president to ever take the oath of office, can hardly represent the generational tide that will flood the voting booths.

While we may be uncertain of exactly what he is, we do know precisely what he is not and that is one of the other candidates. We know them all in varying degrees. Hillary Clinton’s ambition has been on overt display since her days in Arkansas and the move to New York for the senate run was as calculated as her adopting a southern accent when speaking to African-American voters. We suspect we know what she will be like because we have already seen the male version of her administration.

Mitt Romney looks and sounds like every Republican in the modern era. He has money, product-laden hair, good suits, and the ability to change his positions on issues to attract people he had previously alienated. Unfortunately, the evangelical Christian wing of his party privately and publicly disdains Romney’s Mormon religion and they aren’t about to send out their vanguard of spiritual warriors to get him elected.

There’s Rudy, of course, but his “noun, verb, 911″ tactic was miscalculated and instead of elevating his bona fides it has only served to remind us of that which we do not want to confront. His grasp of facts and the truth has not exactly been tenacious, either. Fred Thompson, it turns out, is a better actor on television than on the campaign trail and ambivalence is not powerfully inspiring to the electorate.

What’s left? Mike Huckabee is having his moment but it is not likely to be sustaining. He is far too much the goober from Arkansas, who once stood and stared seriously into a camera and congratulated Canada on saving its national igloo. He seems to have used his influence in Little Rock as a kind of ATM machine for his family and has made the kind of mistakes as a governor that will make him easy to disassemble in the general election. The evangelicals are attracted to Huckabee but the party apparatchiks are not. He’s in trouble.

Republicans prepare for Florida in 08

Speaking at a news conference at the Bank of America Midtown Plaza, Huckabee said Saturday's results in South Carolina were close. He finished second to U.S. Sen. John McCain, just 3 percentage points behind.

Huckabee was then in Atlanta to attend the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative service and to pick up the endorsement of nearly three dozen black ministers and religious leaders from around the country.

When told that Georgia Republicans have voted the same as South Carolinians in every Republican presidential primary since 1980, Huckabee was undeterred.

"They may have voted that way since 1980, but there have been a lot of firsts this campaign season and there's going to be another one. A big one. We plan on carrying Georgia," he said.

Huckabee said things would have been different Saturday had it not been for the presence of former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson on the ballot. Thompson seemed to pull voters away from Huckabee, given both men's appeal to evangelical voters.

"We were this close," Huckabee said. "Some of it, we think, was the Fred Thompson factor. We would have won handily if it weren't for that."

Huckabee took off from the news conference Monday for Florida, where Republicans hold a primary next week. But Huckabee returns to Atlanta Tuesday morning for a pair of receptions and to speak at the Georgia Right to Life memorial service at the Capitol.

Dean Nelson, executive director of the Network of Politically Active Christians, was among those at the news conference endorsing Huckabee.

"Mike Huckabee is the person who encapsulates and carries the values the African-American community holds," Nelson said.

He said he made that decision after Huckabee was the only Republican candidate to show up for a debate sponsored by PBS at historically black Morgan State University.

On the other side of the Republican Party, boosted by strong support from independents and South Carolina's active and retired military voters, Mr. McCain edged out Mr. Huckabee, 33% to 30%.

The results mark a dramatic reversal of fortune for Mr. McCain in the Palmetto State. He was defeated here in 2000 in his unsuccessful presidential bid against George W. Bush -- a campaign marked by negative attacks on the senator's personal life and professional record. "It took us a while, but what's eight years among friends," said a laughing Mr. McCain Saturday night.

On Sunday, Mr. McCain called the GOP contest "still very competitive" but said his South Carolina win gives him momentum heading into the next big battle in Florida. Mr. McCain took a swipe at Rudy Giuliani, who avoided the early primary states to make his first big stand in Florida, which votes Jan. 29. Mr. McCain said he expected to come under heavy criticism from the former New York mayor.

"If someone hasn't run a primary, I can understand why they would attack the front-runner," Mr. McCain told reporters at a news conference.

"I think we're obviously doing very well," Mr. McCain said. Still, he added, "This is still very competitive."

Despite favor from the state's evangelical voting bloc and efforts from outside groups on his behalf, Mr. Huckabee couldn't pull out a win. He heads into Florida in a weakened position, unable to show he can win Republican votes outside of his evangelical base. But Mr. Huckabee struck an optimistic tone in his defeat, noting that he'd rather lose "with honor" than have resorted to negative attacks. "The process is far, far from over," he vowed in his concession speech. "The path to the White House is not ending here tonight."

Huckabee in 08: Immigration Standards

"There's a couple of things we're going to do differently," Huckabee told about 300 supporters in Rock Hill, shortly after arriving in the state from Michigan. "I say we ought to put a hiatus on people who come in here ... if they come from countries that sponsor and harbor terrorists."
said Huckabee.
"Every one of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 came here legally. Our government welcomed them in," Huckabee said.
"Let's say, until you get your act in order, and we get our act in order, we're not going to just let you keep coming and threaten the future and safety of America."
Huckabee didn't mention the proposal at his second stop, a rally of about 250 in Sumter. Afterward, his new senior adviser, Jim Pinkerton, backed away from the proposal, saying that Huckabee really meant that wants a "thorough review" of immigration policies.
"It was crazy that of the 9/11 hijackers, they had 63 pieces of fake identification between them, and we're not going to let that happen," Pinkerton said. "Whatever it takes to cease and desist that, he'll do it. "
Last month, Huckabee proposed to seal the Mexican border, hire more agents to patrol it and make illegal immigrants go home before they could apply to return to this country.