For Romney, a shift - finally - to the general election
To be sure, Romney was the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee even before Rick Santorum announced he was "suspending" his campaign Tuesday. But Santorum's decision allows Romney to stop spending his time and money fending off Republican rivals and focus entirely on President Obama.
The Romney campaign claims that Romney was already focused on the general election: Spokeswoman Andrea Saul told Hotsheet that Romney has always viewed the race as "about defeating President Obama," adding in an email that "[f]rom the time that Mitt Romney announced his candidacy, he has run his campaign with the message that President Obama has failed to fix the economy."
But Romney has had to spend the last six months fighting primarily against his Republican rivals, who he had initially hoped to vanquish before the end of January. And he wasn't finished: Though the Romney campaign had delayed an attack ad in deference to Santorum's daughter's illness over the weekend, it planned to roll out what the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review was a nearly $3 million ad buy in Pennsylvania in an effort to bury Santorum in his home state. (The Romney campaign would not say whether those ads have now been pulled, but one source in Pennsylvania told Hotsheet that Team Romney cancelled scheduled television ads yesterday afternoon.)
And while Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have yet to officially go gentle into that good night, they've both implicitly acknowledged that the race is over - and aren't even making regular campaign appearances. (That's why, at this point, it would be a shock to hear Romney utter either of his remaining rivals' names in anything but positive terms.) The battlefield has now moved almost entirely toward November, with both sides engaged in an effort to frame the fight on the best possible terms.
For Romney, that means casting Mr. Obama as a failed leader whose ill-advised policies have cost jobs and kept the country from getting back on track. For the president, it means casting Romney as a right-wing extremist concerned with protecting the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. It's no coincidence that the president is currently pushing "The Buffett Rule" to mandate that those making $1 million or more pay at least a 30 percent tax rate - despite the fact that it has virtually no chance to pass the Republican-led House of Representatives.
What's next for Rick Santorum?
Analysis: Santorum leaves the race Romney had already won
Will social conservatives rally around Romney?
The big question currently being debated on the GOP side is now whether the party base that had promoted Santorum will make its peace with Romney. No less a voice than Rush Limbaugh, the rampaging id of the conservative movement, said Tuesday that there is "a degree of sadness and disappointment" that "the establishment candidate" has now become the nominee. Certainly, there will be plenty of hemming and hawing in the coming days as conservatives try to make peace with the onetime moderate Massachusetts governor. (It's already begun.)
Yet the real question isn't whether conservatives will back Romney - they will, in light of the alternative - but whether Romney will be able to win over swing voters who may have become spooked by the conservative positions on immigration and other issues that Romney adopted as he fended off primary challenges from the right. With Santorum finally out of the way, don't be surprised to see Romney whip out the metaphorical Etch A Sketch and press hard on the reset button.
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If so the Catholic Hoe will dig for the Mormon Rake? Frother Santorum will not prostitute himself for this sucker. Romney is a moderate liberal druch bag. He will not go over well in the Repugnant Karl Rove White Trash Party. Mitt is what Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove hate. Will they flip flop and do a Romney for their super wealthy patrons. You bet. White Trash can dance if you get them drunk enough.
The clear winner in the GOP primary is the super wealthy only paying 14 percent income tax while raking in $ millions and millions every year.
The GOP only supports the super wealthy. Those rich people that contribute a fortune every year to promote low taxes for the rich are the Rake. While the poor, un-educated Republicans who are mislead by them are the Hoe.
That's why we should all join the American 99% Spring movement starting this week. And coming to a Bankster House and other big predatory corporation in a town near you.
LOL!
Based on his ability to compromise, yes...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/vp/40575006#40575006
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/10/11/how-mitt-romneys-health-care-experts-helped-design-obamacare/
Now he's either playing chess, or if Obama - at face value - is "right of center", why do so many rightwingers loathe him when all he does, and seemingly needlessly so, is to bend over to them time and again?
Politicks
Allen West Says He's Heard 80 Democratic Congressmen Are Secretly Communists
Apparently the spirit of Sen. Joseph McCarthy lives on in South Florida Rep. Allen West. While President Barack Obama was speaking yesterday in Boca Raton, West spoke to supporters in nearby Palm City and said he's heard that up to 80 of the 190 Democratic members of Congress are actually members of the Communist Party. Of course, he offered no names or proof to back up the outrageous claim.
A reckless and unsubstantiated claim such as that hasn't been made by a sitting U.S. member of Congress since Senator McCarthy in the 1950s announced he had proof there were several Communist sympathizers and spies working inside the State Department and other levels of the federal governmen
Gingrich and Paul have not resigned and both,especially Paul,still have much to say.Voters need to hear from them.
Santorum and Gingrich have done much to rally Dem voters,especially women and they've made it much more difficult to cast Romney as a "moderate"and they've delayed the media horse race. Maybe these are factors in the rush to the general election.
Time to shake that Romney Etch-a-Sketch and get a new picture of this guy.. Forget what he stood for yesterday, Today it's something different and Tomorrow Who Knows...