Mitt Quits; McCain Seals Nomination

Earlier today, Mitt Romney announced that he is "suspending his campaign" for the presidency. This is after Romney spent about $35 million of his own money and did not get much out of it.

This announcement comes as no surprise after his poor Super Tuesday showing, where he only won Massachusetts, Minnesota, and few other tiny states.

But now, the Republican race is finished. With Romney officially out of the way, John McCain will be their nominee. He will have a chance to unite his party and begin to raise money for the general election against either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

He still has a lot of work to do, convincing the many conservatives that are at odds with him, including influential conservative talk show radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, that he's a true conservative and would represent the party in the White House.

But he has the advantage of starting two or three months earlier than the Democrats. Their race is likely going to go on until June or even later depending on the results of the contests to come.

The big two questions that are arising are:
1.) How much will this head start really help the Republicans in the uphill battle they face?
2.) Who will be McCain's running-mate?

I will be focusing more on the Democratic race until that clears up in the weeks and months to come, but I will try to answer or at least speculate about these questions in the weeks to come as more of the campaign unfolds.