Zombies live. Candidates who drop out of a presidential race these days only “suspend” their campaigns.
Newt Gingrich finally bailed Tuesday, a few weeks after Rick Santorum exited. Several other contenders folded their hands earlier. Most of them “suspended” their campaigns, latching onto the face-saving semantic trick. None could bring themselves to admit plainly that they were beaten and had no remaining chance to gain the Republican nomination.
In reality, the campaigns enter deconstruction and bill-paying phases. The corpse is a corpse, but the fiction of a suspension, a hiatus, allows the defeated candidate to hang onto a thread of a bargaining chip or even possible resurrection, should the presumptive nominee implode between now and the nominating convention.
I preferred at least the surface simplicity of bygone years, when a candidate beaten into submission actually really quit campaigning, actually called the campaign ended or finished, and quickly endorsed the survivor for the sake of party unity and in support of the goal of defeating the opposing party’s incumbent or nominee.
Now the defeated campaigns live on as undead, as zombies, shambling along emitting the stench of battles better forgotten. Mitt Romney must be wishing for better friends for his cause.
Ahead of the Game
Behind the Zion Curtain
Bishop’s Counsel
Blogging the Rambler
Boxing, MMA News
Economics, etc.
Eye of Faith
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vegan
Inside the Ropes
Mike Lee
Orrin’s Musings
Prep Sports Spotlight
Standard.Net Development
Standing Out
The Baseball Report
The Political Surf
Through My Lens
Why are you crying?
WSU Sports Blog
I agree. “Suspending” a campaign is almost Orwellian. What it really means is I need time to beg money from the winner to pay off my debt.
I think the big reason for ‘suspending’ a campaign is to allow the campaign to defer payment of campaign debts. Gingrich, as I understand it, has $4 million in outstanding campaign debts. Well, the campaign isn’t over, they say, it’s just suspended.
It’s a lawyer/accountant dodge.
So Mark, Doug and Brent:
Where were you all on February 7, 2008, when Mitt Romney *suspended* his bid for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party?
Watching Mormons call the kettle black is just one of the numerous aspects of this election season that makes it really embarrassing to be a Mormon Republican in 2012.
Mike, nothing in my post absolved any candidate who’s ever used the “suspended” device. It was a general condemnation. I wrote the post because I realized how fed up I had become when yet another failed candidate had played the semantic card. The fact that Romney is the one left standing this time is irrelevant. If he had “suspended” this year, I would have piled on him too.
Your reaching reference to religion is silly, as I see it. Please watch who you’re calling a Mormon Republican
Actually, I’m calling myself a Mormon Republican. And this year, more than ever, it is with great shame that I wear that moniker. Face it. The only place in America today where one finds any enthusiasm for Mitt Romney’s candidacy for president is in Deseret, i.e., Utah, parts of Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, and Arizona) and this only among Mormons. Everyone else has a major case of the jitters as to whether this plastic contender can defeat a president who should be the most easily defeated incumbent president in modern times. Me, I think I’m going to write in Judge Andrew Napolitano. Now there’s a vote that no one would ever have to apologize for.
Are you implying there is something dishonest when a candidate suspends a campaign? I wasn’t. There are valid reasons for it, so people shouldn’t be shocked, shocked I tell you, that people do things for valid reasons.
Yes, it is dishonest to the extent that it is inaccurate, which it is. Suspend does not mean end. If they disclosed the full truth of the situation while calling it a suspension, that would be transparent. They don’t. They leave doubt in the minds of any voters who know how to use a dictionary.
Suspending a campaign simply allows the politician to steal political contributions. Corporations donate off the backs of workers and write the donations off; many have even been re-payed with TARP and Bailout Funds, so taxpayers get hit twice. Edwards used funds for trysts and illegitimate baby deliveries; Ron Paul collected $millions every day the 9/11 truth movement thought he was actually after truth; Gingrich, a 33 degree Mason, Shriner, and ex-Baptist turned Opus Dei Catholic will use the funds for Bohemian Grove this summer.
“No matter who people vote for, they always vote for us” Joseph Stalin
SCYTL will count the votes in Barcelona using Foreign Investment Funds. Cool system eh? Ever wonder why PAC MAN eats everything in its way? Proportionally, its mouth is the right size to be a politician too.
Just remember folks, Jesus is watching and taking good notes