Romney makes it official; he's out
Posted: Thursday, February 07, 2008 1:07 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ's Erin McPike
WASHINGTON -- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney used this year's CPAC confab here as the venue to bring his presidential bid to a close.
"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Sen. Clinton or Obama would win," Romney said in his remarks.
As the results were rolling in on Super Tuesday, the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes correctly predicted on FOX that Romney would likely exit the presidential race during his CPAC appearance.
Several scenarios abounded regarding the road ahead should Romney have stayed in the race (including a situation the campaign explained to the New York Times that had the campaign hoping they could nab many of the delegates up for grabs in the event of a Huckabee concession), but too many prognosticators deemed the odds mathematically impossible.
Romney employed many of the same lines in his speech that he's used on the stump throughout his campaign. And he confirmed one obvious thing that he admitted in his book, Turnaround, following his failed 1994 Senate campaign: He hates to lose.
