Mitt Romney Suspends Campaign: Super Tuesday Derailed his Bid

Before Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney was easily seen as a neck-and-neck front runner for the Republican Presidential Nomination with John McCain. Now, only two days later, Romney has suspended his Presidential campaign, citing a unification of the Republican party as his main goal. What happened? What went wrong? Through numbers and primary information found at CNN, lets analyze how Super Tuesday killed Mitt Romney's campaign.

The Huckabee Effect

As the numbers for Super Tuesday started to come in, the Huckabee effect began to show its head. Romney has consistently attacked John McCain for not being conservative enough; this stance was supposed to rally the true conservatives around Romney himself. What happened? Mike Huckabee stepped up as the "ultimate conservative". His view on every issue hit home for many in the Republican party, and the Huckabee uprising began; Huckabee won the first election of the day, in West Virginia. The surprising results for Huckabee didn't end there; he also took Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, adding to his already impressive Iowa win. In many states, conservatives went toHuckabee, leaving Romney in the dust.

The Strength of McCain

John McCain is strong; this was shown through his massive pick-up on Super Tuesday, which included the delegate rich states of California and New York. While Romney consistently tried to paint McCain as a liberal conservative, his plan and attack was not strong enough to take down the "come back kid". McCain managed to convert enough to his ideas, and polarized the others towardHuckabee . Seeing as how McCain was the new front runner, the sparring between him and Romney have seemed to work in McCain's favor; Romney was seen as the second-place man trying to take down the top, and it was seen as dirty and unnecessary. Romney's constant sparring with McCain hurt him, and those Republicans looking for a more aisle-crossing president were made more likely to go for McCain.

Mitt Romney tried hard to paint himself as the quintessential Republican. Unknowingly, he forced supports to both of his sides: the conservative Huckabee, and the more Liberal McCain. This division led to his disappointing showing on Super Tuesday. What is now most important to him is the unification of the Republican party, and whether that was more liberal, or as conservative, the answer was not with him as a candidate, and that is why he suspended his failing campaign.