Mitt Romney delivered the speech GOP elites have been waiting for months to hear, but in doing so he made startlingly clear how hopelessly divided the Republican Party remains in terms of actually slowing Donald Trump's march to the nomination. | AP Photo Romney speech shows why Trump is winning It was a stirring call to arms for a strategic-voting retreat.

Mitt Romney declared it a time for choosing but could not bring himself to choose.

The 2012 Republican nominee for president on Thursday delivered the speech GOP elites have been waiting for months to hear — indicting Donald Trump as a “fraud” and a “phony” whose brand is built on “dishonesty” — but in doing so he made startlingly clear how hopelessly divided the Republican Party remains in terms of actually slowing the Manhattan billionaire’s march to the nomination.


Romney said Trump’s domestic policies “would lead to recession." He said his foreign policies “would make America and the world less safe.” And he said Trump’s temperament was unsuited to the White House: "the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics."

But even as Romney addressed the nation and echoed Ronald Reagan in calling it a “time for choosing,” he would not endorse any of Trump’s three remaining opponents.

"Given the current delegate selection process, this means that I would vote for Marco Rubio in Florida, John Kasich in Ohio, and for Ted Cruz or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump in a given state,” Romney said.

It was a stirring call to arms for a strategic-voting retreat.

And it mirrored the broader slog of a Republican primary, where for months Jeb Bush, Rubio, Cruz, Kasich, Chris Christie and the rest tore each other apart to prevent one another from emerging as the chief Trump alternative.

All believed they could beat Trump one-on-one. None has gotten the chance.

Along the way, Trump has skated. In one remarkable statistic, Trump suffered less in attack ads through Super Tuesday than Romney’s team hurled at Newt Gingrich in the final days in Florida alone in 2012. The Republican Party’s top financiers are mobilizing now, with millions in anti-Trump ads expected in the next two weeks, but it may be too late to slow Trump after he has carried 10 of the first 15 contests, many of them by wide margins.

In failing to back a single Trump alternative, Romney essentially called for a Republican civil war to wage through this summer, a retrenchment for an irreparably divided GOP in hopes of outmaneuvering Trump at a contested convention where party elites still control some levers of power. (Also, by not picking a single anti-Trump standard-bearer, Romney, who briefly considered running for president again in 2016, left slightly more open the door that might allow a contested convention to select him.)

"He's playing the members of the American public for suckers,” Romney said of Trump. "He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat."

Romney’s speech was certainly historic. Perhaps never before has the most recent party nominee for president so thoroughly rebuked the prohibitive front-runner for the nomination four years later. But, as Romney said in his speech, “The rules of political history have pretty much all been shredded during this campaign.”

Romney ripped about Trump’s business background, ticking off bankruptcies and abandoned efforts. “What ever happened to Trump Airlines?” he said. "How about Trump University? And then there's Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks, and Trump Mortgage?”

"A business genius he is not,” Romney said.

Of Trump’s varied stances on issues, Romney added, "Dishonesty is Donald Trump's hallmark."

Romney did not stand alone. Moments after he finished speaking, Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, seconded Romney’s speech. "I share the concerns about Donald Trump that my friend and former Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, described,” McCain said in a statement.

“Well said,” tweeted Kasich.

Trump went on the attack even before Romney took the stage in Salt Lake City, blasting Romney for having “begged” for his endorsement four years earlier. In February 2012, Romney traveled to one of Trump’s hotels to accept the endorsement. “There are some things that you just can’t imagine happening in your life,” Romney said then. “This is one of them. Being in Donald Trump’s magnificent hotel and having his endorsement is a delight.”

On Thursday, Trump hammered back on NBC's "Today" show: "Mitt Romney is a stiff."

Romney said he expected the blowback: “This may tell you what you need to know about his temperament, his stability, and his suitability to be president.”

As the old guard of the Republican Party cheered Romney’s outspoken remarks on Thursday, there remained downside in having so prominent a party leader rip apart Trump, should he still become the nominee.

Said Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the super PAC dedicated to electing Hillary Clinton, understatedly, "Certainly, having a former Republican nominee go after him is not unhelpful.”