...whose real first name is actually, no kidding, Willard, was governor of Massachussetts and is currently the front-runner for president on the Publican ticket. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney's foot is in an ideological bucket because of Romneycare, a state-level experiment that should have been a warning against Obamacare if anyone had been paying attention. Romney's charisma is best defined as soporific, which is probably why he is leading the Publican field...
on Tuesday effectively won the Republican Party crown to challenge President Barack Obama
I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody...
in November elections, as chief rival Rick Santorum
...candidate for president and former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. He was a lawyer before becoming the Representative for suburban Pittsburgh in 1991. He lost his Senate seat in 2006 to Bob Casey, a Democrat machine politician and political dynast. Santorum is a social conservative whose primary attraction is seemingly that he is neither Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich...
dropped his long-shot White House bid.
"This presidential race is over for me," Santorum told news hounds in Gettysburg, in his home state of Pennsylvania.
Despite an upset victory in the first Republican nominating contest in Iowa in January that led to a surprising showing with victories in 10 more states, Santorum failed to build sufficient momentum to derail frontrunner Romney.
He trailed a distant second in the battle to be the party's contender aiming to thwart Obama's hopes of a second term, outspent by Romney's deep war chest and out-organized by an extensive grassroots network.
Over the Easter weekend, the former Pennsylvania senator halted campaigning for four days after his youngest daughter, Bella, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, was hospitalized again.
Santorum acknowledged it had been a "difficult weekend," and said while Bella was getting better, "it did cause us to think."