Why don’t candidates just say they’re quitting the race?

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Updated: February 6, 2012 9:28AM

What’s the deal with the suspensions and reassesments? Whatever happened to quitting, dropping out, throwing in the towel?

When Herman Cain dropped out of the Republican presidential race in early December, he told us, “I am suspending my campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt caused on me and my family.”

After Rick Perry finished a blazing fifth in the Iowa caucuses, news organizations initially said Perry was “suspending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.” Perry himself said, “With the voters’ decision tonight in Iowa, I’ve decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight’s caucus [and] determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race.”

Later in the day, Perry said he’s staying in the race for now.

After winning the support of 6,074 Iowans — 5 percent of the vote — on Tuesday, Michelle Bachmann joined the suspension parade on Wednesday, with CBS first reporting Bachmann “will suspend her campaign after dismal showing.” Shortly after, Bachmann made it clearer, saying, “I have decided to stand aside.”

Here’s the thing about suspensions: Whether it’s a PED-taking athlete, a misbehaving student or a rules-violating employee, when you’re suspended, you’re eventually allowed back into the game.

Suspensions are lifted. Suspensions come to an end.

Candidates say they’re suspending campaigns because it gives them the leeway to jump back into the race if there’s some miraculous turnabout in voter preference. Also, suspending a campaign rather than officially ending it allows an erstwhile candidate to continue to accept funds to retire debt. To terminate a campaign, you have to take care of debts and obligations.

As NBC’s Domenico Montanaro explained in a piece last month, “By not officially terminating his campaign, a candidate can continue to raise money to retire debt . . . For example, Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign has never been terminated because she still owes outstanding debts and obligations. She too, ‘suspended’ her campaign.”

If you have a surplus of funds when you suspend your campaign, you can return the dough, direct it to other candidates or donate it to charity. You can’t keep it.

But Herman Cain isn’t getting back into the race. Michele Bachmann’s campaign is also toast, though she did vow Wednesday to “continue fighting to defeat the president’s agenda of socialism.”

Good Lord. The woman actually believes the president of the United States is a socialist. Either she doesn’t understand the definition of socialism, or she’s nuts.

Anyway. Bachmann’s out. Cain’s out. You can call it a suspension or a reassessment or a re-evaluation for legal reasons, but if it looks like a duck and quits like a duck, it’s a duck.

Race nearly over at the start?

The Republican race has been like a middle-aged version of “The Bachelor,” with candidates getting a rose and taking the spotlight for a few weeks before yielding to the next flavor of the month.

Bachmann had her moment. Then, there was the Herman Cain explosion at the polls, followed by the Herman Cain implosion. For one crazy moment, Newt Gingrich was ready to take the party like it was 1995.

Ron Paul? Nobody has more passionate fans. There just aren’t enough of them for Paul to get even 20 percent of the vote in most primaries, let alone the winning margin in a general election.

It’s going to be the Mitt-ster. After three-plus years of howling that Barack Obama is the worst president ever and must be defeated before he achieves his goal of ruining the country, Republicans are going to nominate Mitt Romney, a semi-moderate from Massachusetts, to take on Obama.

And he’ll lose.

With zero percent of the votes cast, this column is projecting Barack Obama as the winner of the 2012 election by a margin of 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent.

And four minutes after the race is officially over, we’ll have the first article speculating on the 2016 race.