Even after Mitt Romney had all but secured the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, he had to deal with a couple of bitter-enders who refused to drop out of the race.
Rick Santorum, whom Romney described in his private journal as “sanctimonious, severe and strange,” wanted to negotiate the terms of his withdrawal. As the Atlantic’s McKay Coppins recounts in his recent biography Romney: A Reckoning, the Romney campaign discussed “what Romney could ‘offer’ him to drop out and make an endorsement” — maybe help him raise money to pay off his campaign debts or consider him for vice president or a cabinet post.
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