US politician Mitt Romney stepped away from what would have been his third US presidential run and reset the field in the battle for the 2016 US Republican Party nomination.
The former Massachusetts governor’s decision freed up vast quantities of political oxygen for the potential runs by other Republicans contenders, especially former Florida governor Jeb Bush — son of one Republican former US president and brother of another.
The broad — but still unannounced — field of possible candidates is jockeying to be the Republican Party contender who faces off against likely Democrat nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton — former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state.
The election to pick a successor to US President Barack Obama is still 21 months away and none of the potential candidates has said for certain whether they would make a run for the Republican nomination. Bush has taken initial steps toward a run, and so have New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and US Senator from Florida Marco Rubio.
Romney had run for president twice before. Before claiming the nomination to oppose Obama in 2012, he lost a primary bid to US Senator John McCain in 2008. Obama took big wins each time.
For now, polls show Bush as the front-runner. The mainstream Republican candidates are expected to be hard-pressed to avoid being pushed too far to the right of the political spectrum in their bid to win the nomination. The series of state primary and caucus votes are dominated by conservative activists and voters.
Romney’s drift to the right during the primaries was seen as one reason for his loss to Obama in 2012.
Bush and Romney are deeply at odds over the direction of the Republican Party, which has been unable to appeal to black and Hispanic voters. In the 2012 campaign Romney, alienated Hispanics in particular by saying that US immigration policy should encourage people illegally in the nation to “self-deport.”
That position opened a rift with Bush, whose wife was born in Mexico.
After his 2012 loss, Romney had repeatedly said that he was done with presidential politics.
However, three weeks ago, Romney appeared to do an about-face, saying that he was considering another run. He made calls to former fundraisers, staff members and supporters, and gave three public speeches in which he outlined his potential vision for another campaign — focusing this time on the plight of the middle class.
Critics jabbed the new focus as an insincere shift designed to shed his image as an out-of-touch millionaire. Those closer to Romney suggested that it was a truer reflection of a man of deep faith than most voters saw during his first two presidential campaigns.
It was an attempt to distance himself from 2012, when he was caught on video telling a room full of wealthy donors that 47 percent of US citizens — middle and low-income US citizens — would vote for Obama no matter what he did.
US residents “who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you-name-it,” Romney said.
In the end, Romney’s exit on Friday reflected the defection to Bush of several of his former major donors and a veteran staffer.
While likely boosting the chances of Bush, Christie, Walker and Rubio, Romney’s departure leaves unchanged the more conservative side of the field, with a group of candidates that will likely include Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS