So, Romney's out. I'm honestly really surprised. Romney was able to do two things I thought unbelievable:

1. He was able to get himself lumped in as a candidate assuming Evangelical support. Romney lost me completely when he had the gall to posit Mormonism within the Christian faith - such intellectual dishonesty is staggering. It was I think this obvious and blatant manipulation in trying to mislead the public that was my major problem with him on this issue - not his actual religious position itself. The sad thing is that I would bet 67% of people don't realize that he was dishonest in his statement or what I'm even talking about in a differentiation between Mormons and Christians. Romney, however, I'm sure knows...as do I. Again - it is not his faith itself (though troublesome to a degree) but his intellectual dishonesty that really turned me off.

2. He has achieved being labeled as "the conservatives conservative." For the majority of McCain's career, he has been solidly conservative. However, McCain doesn't put his party over the country...though I like it best how my wife puts it: "He's just the only one that doesn't have his head up his ass." Well said. Anyway, McCain isn't afraid to go against party lines and won't pander to party heads. This, I think is a great part of his appeal. Let's look at the infamous tax cut he didn't vote for. This is a great example of the lame excuses Rush and other partisan politic dimwits try to twist to make him look liberal. Yeah, McCain didn't vote for the tax cut; however, he did so because there was no correlate cut of federal spending. Makes sense, eh? Anyway, I'm not today trying to talk about McCain (no candidate is perfect - sure there are things about even him that I'm not 100% on board with), but the point is that a guy like this has been labeled (as Jon Stewart so humorously poked fun) as a long lost Kennedy cousin who's just waiting to get to the White House and rip off his mask to reveal himself as king of liberals. Romney, however, has been able to position himself as the conservative's savior. Are you kidding me? This guy flips all over the place, so my first question is which Romney are you talking about? As my good friend earlier reminded me, Romney is the man that brought Universal Health Care to Massachusetts. Yeah, that's a candidate grounded in limited government and lower taxes. Good grief.

Anyway, Romney ran a good race, but he's out. He evidentially hates both McCain and Huckabee, so I'm curious to see where he positions himself. He was no doubt an interesting candidate in what has been a high-stakes run for the Presidency. I just shocked he got out before Huck.