April 14

For all intents and purposes, the Republican nomination battle came to an end on Tuesday, April 10, when Rick Santorum, the candidate who had won the second most delegates during the primaries and caucuses that have been held, suspended his campaign. While Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul remain in the race, they are unlikely to win any state and are unlikely to try to pretend as if they might.

Bowing to family concerns, an upcoming potential embarrassing loss in his home state, and the unlikelihood of mounting a politically successful comeback, Santorum decided to step aside in 2012 with the belief that he might one day be the Republican Party's "next in line", a position that continues to be very valuable in GOP Presidential politics.

All of that is a matter for the future though. While Santorum made no mention of the man who defeated him during his suspension announcement and while a formal endorsement has not been made, there seems little doubt that after a contentious primary season, the Republican Party is preparing to unite itself behind the presumptive nominee.

Two hundred and six days from now, Willard Mitt Romney and Barack Hussein Obama will be presented to the voters after what will be a long and competitive general election campaign. Today, the "smart money" seems to be that Obama will win four more years, but the political reality of the economy and subpar approval ratings for the incumbent indicate that a reelection is far from a fait accompli.

While the primary calender and new delegate allocation rules meant that Romney had to wait a little longer than the 2008 GOP nominee to be the last person standing, he has in effect clinched his nomination well before the time on the calender that Obama clinched his four years. Looking at national and key state polling, Romney seems to be in far better shape today to win the Presidency in November, than Obama appeared to be against John McCain in April of 2008.

While many states have yet to hold their primaries and caucuses, the task for Romney now has really moved to pivoting towards a general election campaign and preparing for a late summer convention. Choosing a Vice Presidential running-mate will be at the top of the list, and that person is likely to be revealed just before the convention proceedings. In the weeks ahead, I expect to devote some more time to dissecting the various names being mentioned and their likelihood of being selected.

As we look towards the general election it is worth noting, that while his re-nomination has long been a formality, the last primary voting did see Obama clinch the number of necessary delegates to clinch the Democrat nomination. There will be no brokered convention in Charlotte, in case anybody was seriously contemplating the possibility. However, while it may not matter too much in the grand scheme of things, some Democrat primary results in conservative states like Oklahoma and Louisiana produced some oddly weak results for an incumbent President who was running virtually unopposed, as Obama failed to win some counties and parishes. In the grand scheme of things, it may not be a big story, but it is also true that the last two successfully reelected Presidents, one in each party, certainly did not come close to losing in any jurisdiction on their road to re-nomination.

Despite conventional wisdom, if the last week's polls from Fox News and Rasmussen Reports are to be believed, Governor Romney is starting this new phase with a slight lead over the incumbent President. The daily tracking polls from Rasmussen, as well as Gallup, which is to begin this upcoming week, will be highly watched by political junkies. As an ardent Republican and Romney supporter, I fully expect Obama to lead those daily polls for the next long stretch of this campaign. Still though, I feel reasonably confident that Romney will be in a solid position to win in November. I know for certain that if he cannot, no other Republican would have been able to this cycle.

One development this week was certainly a positive for the Romney campaign and put the Obama White House, reelection team, and entire Democrat Party on the defensive in the general election's first brouhaha.

Hillary Rosen, a Democrat consultant, who has been paid large sums of money for consulting work by the DNC in recent months, appeared on CNN and dismissed Ann Romney's credentials to offer opinions on the economy to her husband, saying that the candidate's wife had "never worked a day in her life."

That remark was met with an immediate firestorm, as the Romney campaign and conservatives (many of which had been unfriendly towards the campaign up to that point) reacted in unison saying that the comment was an outrage that denigrated a well-respected woman who had raised five sons and has dealt with some serious challenges in her life. Mrs. Romney went so far as to create a Twitter account to say that it was indeed "hard work" raising five boys,and effectively went on television to make the case that stay at home moms also deserve respect.

Reaction from the left was pretty harsh towards Ms. Rosen as well, as everyone from David Axelrod to Jim Messina, to Barack and Michelle Obama themselves distanced themselves from what Rosen had said, sometimes in quite a blunt manner. After some initial reluctance, Rosen herself apologized to Ann Romney and anybody who had been offended. There is no indication though that Rosen's professional ties have been severed by the DNC though. Considering the harm her remark had made though, she may be far more cautious whenever she puts on her pundit hat moving forward. Some on the right claim though that this was not a gaffe, and Rosen knew exactly what she was doing, at the behest of superiors in the effort to reelect Obama. If this all was a intentional ploy to damage Ann Romney and her potential impact on the race, it seems to have been a monumental failure.

Almost everybody recognizes that the campaign world will soon move on from that story of the past week and something else will capture everyone's attention. Nonetheless, it was a week where the narrative battle was won by the challenger's party and has demonstrated the potential and ability of Ann Romney to be a popular and sympathetic character in the months to come. Gaging the reaction across the conservative media outlets and blogosphere, Rosen seemed to have united the movement into a defense of the Romneys and a willingness to stand by them in the campaign ahead, even while many are still disappointed that he has won the nomination.

After Santorum and Rosen, some have said that this has been the best week politically that Mitt Romney has ever had. As a long time supporter of his, I recognize that it has been a pretty positive few days, but believe that the best is yet to come.