Romney Out

They called him a flip-flopper and a robocandidate, but mostly Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney just had class.

And now he is suspending his campaign after the disappointing results of Super Tuesday. Speaking to the CPAC conference today he said:

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 Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.

Romney is a class act, and he terminates his campaign with his head held high. Why is it that throughout his campaign he refrained from getting down into the gutter with Senator McCain?

Roger Scruton in Culture Counts tells how this works. The point of religion and culture, he writes, is to breathe into society the practical knowledge of “knowing what to do” and “knowing what to feel.” It is a testimony to Romney Mormon faith that he seems to have exactly that.

His concession speech was a good one, a bold statement of conservatism. Here are a couple of quotes.

Most politicians don’t seem to understand the connection between our ability to compete and our national wealth, and the wealth of our families. They act as if money just happens—that it’s just there. But every dollar represents a good or service produced in the private sector. Depress the private sector and you depress the well-being of Americans.

That means that every dollar taken out of the private sector is a net loss, even a dollar for “stimulus.” Then there is this:

The threat to our culture comes from within. The 1960’s welfare programs created a culture of poverty. Some think we won that battle when we reformed welfare, but the liberals haven’t given up. At every turn, they try to substitute government largesse for individual responsibility... Dependency is death to initiative, risk-taking and opportunity. Dependency is a culture-killing drug—we have got to fight it like the poison it is!

Unfortunately, it will probably be four or eight years before America is ready again to fight the good fight.

Meanwhile everyone is intoxicated with the audacity of hope and change you can believe in.