By Emily Geiger

The post-mortem on the Romney campaign is in full swing. I’ve had a few friends ask me if I thought Romney’s religion was the reason he ended up losing and dropping out. Then, this morning, I read this, which addressed the same question, and better yet, it came up with an answer pretty similar to mine.

Romney didn’t lose because he was a Mormon. He lost because he wasn’t even a very good Mormon. Not only did his extremely liberal positions on social issues as Massachusett's Governor go against the values of the Republican Party, they went against the values of his own church, which made him seem pretty hypocritical.

Then came the conversion. All of the sudden, Mitt was Mr. Pro-Life and Mr. Marriage Amendment (despite the fact he opposed a marriage amendment as governor of Massachusetts). It’s one thing if you’re Rudy, who is a liberal on social issues and is unapologetic for it. Rudy has never claimed to be a champion of morals… just ask wives numbers 1 and 2, as well as his kids who won’t speak to him. Mitt, on the other hand, was supposed to be this great religious family man with great morals, and yet he didn’t realize that abortion was wrong until he was about ready to run for president. Here’s where his faith plays into the equation. Mitt had no excuse for not knowing that abortion was wrong because his church had been telling him it was wrong for the first 60 years of his life. Given this fact, his prior support for abortion rights had to have been a pretty firmly held belief.  This made his sudden conversion even more suspect.

The problem is that Mitt didn’t know what Mitt stood for, and he likely still doesn’t. This article talks about how Mitt and his advisors tried to craft his message in the early days of the campaign (because he didn’t seem to have a message) and how Mitt’s positions shifted as the campaign went along due to changing circumstances. Here’s a quote from the story:

But Mr. [Alex] Gage [Romney’s director of strategy] acknowledged that in Mr. Romney’s rush to beat back the attacks questioning his conservative credentials, he may have swung too far in the other direction, ultimately taking some of the most-pronounced stands against illegal immigration and social issues.

“Maybe we overcompensated,” Mr. Gage said.

That’s just the problem. Mitt’s positions on issues were open to debate amonst his staff of advisors who would tell him what he believed. He wasn’t a strong candidate with solid positions on anything. I also find it interesting his director of strategy is saying they went too far to the right on social issues. Keep that in mind when he runs in 2012. Will Mitt go from liberal governor, to conservative candidate, back to liberal (or at least moderate) candidate? If so, then he’s really flushed his credibility down the toilet.

Newsweek’s Howard Fineman has an extremely blunt and accurate piece on the subject. Here’s some of what he had to say:

Here lieth the campaign of Mitt Romney, victim of the mistaken belief that the only way to succeed in national Republican politics was to turn yourself into something you are not. Or maybe the campaign revealed what his closest friends never imaged him to be. They thought he was a decent classy guy. But maybe he really is a soulless throat-cutter who would do and say anything to win.

***

The quality of being genuine is hard to convey, and deciding who should be president based solely on that basis can lead to disaster; you need brains and an ability to go with the flow as well. But voters know a phony above all and Romney came off as one from the get-go. Over the last decade he had changed his views in a rightward direction on so many issues to suit what he thought he needed to win the GOP nomination that he ended up standing for nothing but his own ambition.

He had good staff in the early states, but as soon as the genuine article (or at least a more genuine article) came along in Iowa, in the form of Mike Huckabee, Romney was blown away. Then, having ceded the moderate ground, he lost in New Hampshire to another genuine article, John McCain (who learned his own lessons about the dangers of pandering to the right earlier in his campaign).

It's no accident that the GOP race is down to three men who are clear about who they are: McCain, Huckabee and, yes, Ron Paul.

Fineman does go on to say that Mitt’s Mormonism hurt him in the Bible Belt, but what really hurt him was his utter lack of sincerity and credibility on social issues. Without that, he didn’t have a prayer.

Yesterday morning Governor Mitt Romney ended his presidential campaign. The news rocked the CPAC convention in Washington DC where he made the announcement. It also had a major impact on the race for the Republican nomination.

As soon as Romney announced that his campaign was over, the media made it known that basically John McCain is the Republican nominee. However, Mike Huckabee is still alive and has a chance to do very well in the states that hold their caucuses and primaries on Saturday. There is also news that James Dobson is close to endorsing Huckabee, which would be a major development.

Since we will have plenty of time to discuss John McCain, I think it’s appropriate to discuss Romney’s speech at CPAC yesterday. In his speech Romney said, “Even though we face an uphill fight, I know that many in this room are fully behind my campaign.” You are with me all the way to the convention. Fight on, just like Ronald Reagan did in 1976. But there is an important difference from 1976: today… we are a nation at war.” Romney then went on to talk about McCain and suspend his campaign.

I find it very odd that he ends his campaign because a Republican needs to win in November, he even said some nice things about McCain, but if that’s how he really feels shouldn’t he have endorsed McCain in his speech?

This leads me to believe that this doesn’t have anything to do with the War on Terror, but has everything to do creating political options for him in 2012. Mitt Romney has been smoked this election cycle. He has out spent every single Republican candidate and still could not mount a winning campaign.

So Romney made a smart political move to get out now, and come back in four years just like Ronald Reagan did in 1976. The problem for Romney is he isn’t Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was likable, Romney isn’t. Ronald Reagan got involved nationally to help a conservative candidate get elected, Romney got involved to get himself elected.

Romney now has to walk a conservative line between now and the 2012 nomination fight. I have no doubt that he will, but it will be interesting to see how he does it. I have liked the issues that Romney talked about in his campaign; he just never convinced me that he really believed it. So over the next few years he has to work on people like me.

2012 is going to be one heck of a year. Right now one can easily predict that it’s going to be a battle between Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. Romney’s move to suspend his campaign today made it difficult for Huckabee to continue on. Huckabee is everyone’s favorite guy, but people may quickly turn on him if it’s perceived that he is just prolonging the inevitable.

Huckabee is already well positioned for a future campaign in 2012. Romney is the one that needs to make the moves. While Romney has the big wigs in conservative movement supporting him, Huckabee has more grassroots support and appeal. Remember folks, elections are about voters not talking heads.

Huckabee could also find him self on the ticket in 2008 with McCain. I think it’s a strong ticket. It’s a no lose for Huckabee to take the spot if offered it by McCain. I also think its nuts to talk about 2012 right now because I think McCain is a strong general election candidate. Yes, strong enough to win. If that happens Romney’s political career is over.

According to Time Magazine's Mark Halperin, Romney is leaving the race. This would be huge news if true. I have to say, I’m surprised by this. Perhaps Romney’s famed business acumen has finally taken over. Look at the risk/reward ratio. It’s just not worth the money anymore for the miniscule chance he could force a convention and pull this out. And then he’d have to deal with Barack O’Billary, which would mean another $50+ million coming out of the Romney family coffers.

Very interesting… and the true test would then come for the “Christian Conservative” wing of the party. Will Jim Dobson, Rob Schenck, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer et al finally get behind Huckabee? If they don’t, I’m really going to start believing all the rumors that this crowd has been bought and paid for in this election cycle.

I hear CPAC is running about a half hour behind schedule, so Romney hasn’t taken the stage yet. Knowing the Romney media machine, this could just be one huge ploy to get media attention for Romney’s CPAC speech. Only time will tell….

So I know this has been hashed out pretty much all day Wednesday, but here’s what struck me about Tuesday’s results.

First, while it is getting a good amount of press, I don’t think Huckabee’s domination of the South is truly getting the attention it deserves. I remember seeing a map a few days ago on Foxnews that was color-coded based on how Fox anticipated the Super Tuesday results. Only one state, Arkansas, was coded for Huckabee. All the other Southern states were supposed to go to Romney, and none of them did.

And not only did Romney not win these Southern states like he was supposed to, he didn’t even get second. He was usually a distant third.

Second, I found it a little ironic that, while Huckabee’s success is always, in the media’s eyes, attributable to support from evangelicals, I heard very few people mention that Romney’s success has tended to happen in places where there are a lot of Mormons, or places where he’s lived. (Apparently it’s OK for Mormons to vote for Mormons, but Evangelicals are being closed-minded when they vote for an Evangelical… same for women for Hillary and blacks for Obama.) I’ve heard Huckabee being called a “regional candidate,” but I think it’s better to be able to win a region than only being able to win places I’ve lived, like Romney.

Third, everyone who said that this was a two-man race, and that conservatives needed to vote for Romney rather than Huckabee, look like morons today. That includes just about every so-called conservative talk radio personality, self-proclaimed evangelical know-it-all Rob Schenck, and Rombot himself. Huckabee’s strength in the South would be much more helpful in the general election than Romney’s wins, which consist of states that will be blue in the general and states that have relatively low numbers of electoral votes.

I still don’t know if anyone can stop McCain from getting the nomination, but, at this point, I think Huckabee has a better shot than Rombot. Romney needs to take his ball and go home.

There are lots of other ways Romney could have cemented a grand legacy for himself other than being president. Just imagine what charity he could have done with that $50 million he’s spent on his presidential campaign. Too bad he wasn’t content to just do good in the world; he wanted power instead. Now, he’s going to have less money, less capacity to do good, and he’s basically been neutered of any potential power. Not much of a legacy.

Ok, lets just get this out of the way; I jumped the gun last week when I said that the Republican nomination was over. I was wrong, and while I have egg on my face, it pails in comparison to the amount of egg on the face of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and the Romney campaign.

All last week we were lead to believe by the above mentioned, that it was a two man race for the Republican nomination between the Moderate John McCain, and the Conservative Mitt Romney. The only time they mentioned Huckabee’s name was when they were claiming that he was playing the role of spoiler.

Well they got one thing right; it is a two man race between a moderate and a conservative. They just got the candidates wrong, its McCain vs. Huckabee and the role of spoiler was played by Romney.

Now I’m sure some Romney supporter is going to rush to his defense and tell me how many states he has won. The problem for Romney is he isn’t winning the states he needs to if he wants to paint himself as a successful general election candidate.

Romney has won 10 states thus far, six “red” states and four “blue” states. However the six “red” states that he has won only give him 28 electoral votes in the general election if he wins those states. On the other hand, Mike Huckabee has won a total of 6 states, all of them red. Those six states make up 53 electoral votes, with most of them located in the south where Republican’s have to win in November. It’s also worth noting that the Rush, Hannity Ingraham supported candidate wasn’t even competitive, he finished 3^rd in all of the southern states.

Last night McCain met expectations, Mike Huckabee exceeded expectations, and Mitt Romney bombed. The southern conservatives sent a loud message to Mitt Romney; you’re not the conservative standard bearer. I have to wonder what would have happened to Romney if Rush and Hannity didn’t coo all over this guy for the past few weeks? He received a ton of free media, he pumped in millions of his own money into his campaign, and yet he has a handful of mountain states to show for it.

Huckabee once again finds a way to steal the headlines. Before any votes were cast today nobody would have been surprised if Huckabee would have only won his home state of Arkansas. By the end of the night he won 5 major states, and has established himself as the southern conservatives many of us have said he was for a long time now.

As the race to the nomination heads to Kansas and Louisiana on the 9^th the race is now between John McCain and Mike Huckabee.