The folks at the Boston Globe figured it right. Rick Santorum gave up the ghost before the people in his home state of Pennsylvania could vote for or against him. As of today Santorum suspended his campaign and while Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are still technically in the race the surrender effectively hands Romney the nomination. Not that the Mitt wasn't going to win it anyway, but it does end the day to day grind of a savage in house fight that caused his campaign to hemorrhage money and prevented him from focusing on Barak Obama.
Now Romney can kick back and breathe easy. His people can concentrate on the vice presidential vetting process. He can start gearing those ugly attack ads straight at the president. Over the next few months he will probably spend more money on TV time than the Anheuser Busch brewery and General Motors combined. Why not? It isn't like he is going to run short of cash. Every fat cat republican in the world is going to be on the phone to him pledging untold millions to super pacs that either exist right now, or will tomorrow. There are a lot of deep pockets in the GOP and everyone of them will want to buy a piece of the candidate. After all, what good is it to have your man in the white house if he doesn't owe you something?
Santorum's decision also allows Romney to edge back toward the center during the next few weeks. It won't be sudden and it will be subtle. However the truth is he has to begin playing to the independents and those republicans living in the swing states. The pitch now has to start appealing to those who are uncomfortable with all the wild eyed tea party, born again Christian, burn Washington to the ground, rhetoric. The Aryan Brotherhood wing of the party might scream like banshees when he does, but unless Paul goes all Gotterdammerung and runs as an independent this fall, Romney is going to get their votes anyway. They don't like the Mitt. They loathe the president.
So what has come to pass is what everyone expected to happen back in those cold dark days before the Iowa caucuses. Romney is the republican's man. The road had a lot more twists and turns and was quite a bit longer than anyone thought it would be. And the brutal truth is if there had been anyone at all in the GOP who didn't either have a sordid past, or been able to not put their foot in their mouth every five minutes, Mitt would have gone down in flames. But, that person simply didn't exist. In the end the Mittster didn't really win the nomination, he just managed not to lose it.
He isn't what a lot of them wanted, but they are stuck with him now. Never have so many been so reluctant, but so compelled to jump on a bandwagon. The sign is lit and it reads, "Immediate Seating Available. All aboard for the ride." Many will come, but few will smile.
4-10-12
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