Romney Abandons Hope Of Presidency

It appears that Republican candidate Mitt Romney has given up hope of winning this Autumn's US Presidential Election.  At a recent rally he introduced Paul Ryan as the next President of the United States!!  That, of course was just one of a series of gaffes by Romney, who in the last few weeks has managed to provoke angry responses from Boris Johnson and David Cameron, who he had come to visit to pick up foreign Conservative support, as well as annoying the French, Germans, Poles, and Palestinians.  But, its not the gaffe in relation to his warm up for Ryan that is indicative that Romney has abandoned hope of winning; its the fact he chose Ryan as his running mate in the first place.

The Republican establishment ensured that all the wacko right-wing candidates for the Republican nomination, were dropped, and Romney chosen, because they know that for any Republican to have a chanc of beating Obama, they have to be able to win over some of the independent voters.  Of all the field of Republican candidates, as the Party base has moved ever rightwards, Romney was the only hope.  By choosing Ryan, Romney has demonstarted that he knows he cannot beat Obama, and that he is settling for simply trying to consolidate the Republican core vote.  Romney has abandoned the US middle ground in order to mollify the Tea Party Taliban that seems to be asserting its grip on the Republican Party.  The more the Tea Party, and the religious Right appear to be in control, the more it will result not just in middle of the road voters abandoning the Republicans, but is likely to push important sections of US Big Business further away, and even ore into the hands of their closest ideological advocates - the Democrats.

Romney seems to want to simply keep the Republican Party together, ready for the 2015 campaign, and possibly also in the hope of winning seats in Congress.  However, he is now tied to Ryan's Tea Party agenda, which would see swingeing cuts in the budget, the privatisation of the US Welfare State provision of Medicair and Medicaid etc., which will hit even middle class older people, who rely on it for Health and Social Care provision.  Given the preponderance of elderly people in places like Florida, which is a crucial swing state, and given that elderly people are more likely to vote, even that is less likely.