Saturday, January 31, 2015

Romney quits at third attempt. Should he take some lessons from Nigeria's (Africa's) politicians or vice versa?

Peter Hamby, Gloria Borger and Alexandra Jaffe of the CNN reports that three weeks to the day since he informed a group of Republican financiers in New York that he was serious about a third presidential bid, Romney on Friday finally pulled the plug on his long and sometimes agonizing political career, telling supporters that he would not mount a third bid for the US Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

"He decided he could be the nominee," said Tagg Romney, the oldest of Romney's five sons. "The fear was that in order to get there it was going to be so hard fought that he could not emerge from a position of strength." The family, he explained, "all said we would support him, although none of us was looking forward to the process. But no one said we won't go through this."

Romney's decision to forgo a run, made over the weekend in consultation with his family, came on the heels of what associates described as "frank" and "clinical" strategy session with his closest advisers in Boston last Friday at the offices of Solamere Capital, the financial firm run by Tagg Romney and Spencer Zwick, Romney's top fundraiser. Romney's announcement also came two days after David Kochel, one of Romney's closest confidantes since his days as Massachusetts governor, announced that he would join the likely campaign of Jeb Bush, Romney's top rival for support in the Republican establishment.

The former Massachusetts Governor, who will be 68 in March, told supporters that there is need for other voices to be heard in the bowing-out statement he read to supporters on a conference call Friday. 

Should Romney have remembered the common saying "quitters never win and winners never quit" and continue or was he just being plain sensible? Maybe Romney should have learnt to keep going from Nigeria's politicians or maybe it is Nigeria's politicians who need to learn from him on when to honorably bow out.

Read full story here

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