Him again? Really?
Mitt Romney has said time and time again that he has no interest in running for president a third time.Oliver Willis is so skeptical of this that he's vowing to re-register as a Republican and vote for Romney in the Maryland primary if it happens. And, yeah, it does seem implausible.
But, on Sunday morning, CBS' Bob Schieffer said not to write off the idea of a 2016 campaign by Romney so quickly.
"I have a source that told me that if Jeb Bush decides not to run, that Mitt Romney may actually try it again," Schieffer said.
During a political panel discussion, the "Face the Nation" host said that he has been told that Romney will consider seeking the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2016 if former Florida governor Jeb Bush chooses to sit the race out.
People who are going to run in 2016 are already laying groundwork, and I don't see Romney doing that. But I bet the idea nags at him. A lot of people overlook the fact that Romney's an angry guy, a Nixonian collector of grievances. Clearly, he still thinks he was robbed. He's still angry that he was mocked on Russia. He's still angry at Harry Reid for saying he didn't pay taxes. You look at his life and you know he's never learned how to lose, because losing is something that hasn't happened to him very often, at least until 2008 and 2012.
And what is he doing with his life? Other people leave public life and find solace in either activity or leisure. Gerald Ford played golf. George W. Bush paints. Dick Cheney trolls Democrats and revels in memories of his own sociopathy. Jimmy Carter builds houses, observes elections, and writes books. Al Gore took a climate change lecture on the road. Romney sometimes pretends to be the happy suburban-dad retiree enjoying his extended family and the simple tasks of ordinary life, but the notion that he's at peace with that is never believable.
I'm sure no one in the party wants the old retread to run. But if there's more trouble among party-establishment contenders -- Scott Walker and his aides remain under Christie-like scrutiny, Paul Ryan decides he'd rather pursue power positions in the House, Jeb decides to stay out of the race -- the party bigwigs are going to want somebody to step up. No doubt they'd prefer someone other than Romney. But the trial balloon will be floated again, as it's being floated now.
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Alan Colmes has been somewhat better as a blogger than he was as a TV personality and Fox News dunkable clown, but what he says about this is ridiculous:
If Romney does run, he'd be smart to do it as a moderate this time, and not pander to the extreme elements of his party.Stop, Alan. Please, just stop. There's no place in the Republican Party for moderates. Why the hell would Romney deliberately choose to transform himself into Jon Huntsman? Republicans now come in two flavors: very conservative and extremely conservative. You can be artificially flavored, as Romney demonstrated in 2012, but you'd better taste like one or the other.
