Bill Bennett: “this afternoon, I and a number of others who have been supporting Gov. Mitt Romney for the Presidency of the United…”

“this afternoon, I and a number of others who have been supporting Gov. Mitt Romney for the Presidency of the United States met with the Governor and his good wife Ann to have a postmortem following his announcement that he was suspending his campaign. I was perhaps the first Member of this Chamber to announce my public endorsement of Governor Romney, so I wish to be among the first to extend my congratulations to Senator McCain, who has now, by virtue of Governor Romney's suspension of his campaign, locked up the Republican nomination. We all have our understanding of Senator McCain's persistence and his determination to go forward in what he considers to be a good cause. There has never been a demonstration of the importance of that persistence quite as dramatic as his comeback from this campaign. We can remember the time when all of the pundits and, frankly, all the rest of us, myself very much included, wrote off the McCain campaign, assuming that Senator McCain was lying dead in the gutter by the side of the road. I remember talking with some of his supporters in this Chamber at that time who said the McCain campaign is reeling and we don't know whether it is going to ever come back. I remember the rumors that flowed around this town, where people said: We cannot raise any money for the McCain campaign. No one wants to contribute to a lost cause.…”