Romney Speaks at CPAC and Suspends Presidential Bid

Lots of people cheering. What an honor to be here. Laura Ingram introduced him. Thanks to talk radio. I love being introduced as the conservative’s conservative. Ann is here and my boys.

Thank you, it was an honor to be here last year. I look forward to joining you many, many more times in the future. Last year CPAC gave me the send off I needed. Nearly 4 million people have given me their support while 4.7 million have given their support to Mr. McCain. Yet he has got more delegates.

Conservative principles are needed more than ever. Or we may become the France of the 20th century. Sharon Perez said, "America is unique. In most wars countries take land, America laid down millions of lives and did not take land after WWII." The strongest ally peace will know and has ever known is a strong America!

That's why we need to face our challenges. Our culture is under attack. Mr. Landis' work traces history. The thing we learn is that the culture makes all the difference economically. Even people that don't believe in God believe in something greater than themselves. Our ideals are the source of the nation’s strength and they always will be.

The threat to our culture comes from within. Liberals attempt to substitute government largesse for individual responsibility. Dependency is the drug that we should fight.

We are at war. Hillary and Obama would retreat and declare defeat. I believe, along with McCain, in doing whatever it takes in Iraq. 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.

I hate to lose.

My family, my friends, my supporters across the country, if it was only about me I would go on. But this is not about me, this is about America. I love America and because of that I feel I have to stand aside for our party and our country.

I will continue to stand for conservative principles. We face the burden of liberty. We are dedicated and we will succeed beyond our wildest dreams. I love you.

The crowd was stunned! The next speaker got a few boos by trying to move the CPAC meeting along. They were gracious, however, and the meeting continued.

Thank you Justin Hart for the great close up video.


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UPDATE: I am not too surprised by this. We ended up much lower in the delegate race than we had hoped. If we had over 400 delegates we could have continued, but 270 just wasn't in the running. I think Romney has withdrawn from the race very graciously. He is a great conservative and represents a kind of dignified hope that few Presidential candidates could inspire.

He inspired hope not from his great speaking (he did have some grammatical errors), he inspired hope not from his political skills (he was not a professional politician like others), he inspired hope not from his debate skills (he could look a bit flustered); no, Mitt Romney inspired hope because of his belief in Americans, he inspired the masses because of his faith that the American people are the hope of the world, he inspired hope by calling for America to stand up to the level of its greatness and continue as the strongest nation in the world, Romney inspired hope because of his faith that America is great because of her people and her people are tolerant, generous, strong, and innovative.

Thank you Mitt Romney for inspiring this hope in me.