We're hearing another flurry of rumors that Mitt Romney is thinking about running for in 2016. John Dickerson of CBS News asks What Mitt Romney thinks about when he thinks about running for president
Romney is enjoying a rebirth because of disappointment in President Obama as well as some particular challenges to the likely GOP field. In a CNN poll, a majority of Americans (53 percent to 44 percent) said they would now vote for Romney over Obama. In Republican ranks, Romney looks more appealing as former White Knight candidates like Christie, Jeb Bush, and Gov. Scott Walker lose a little of their shine. When he was a candidate, Iowa treated Romney roughly, but in August he was way ahead of the pack in a poll there. (It's a poll that is meaningless as a predictor of voter sentiment but that gets passed around by people trying to whip up candidacies.)
But is Romney really a stronger candidate than the members of the current field? A flawless imagined Romney presidency looks good compared with the up-close reality of the Obama presidency--particularly if you focus on Romney's wariness about the threat Russia poses and Obama's smug dismissal of the idea during the second debate. There's also the gross mismanagement at the Department of Veteran Affairs, the shoddy implementation of healthcare.gov, and the president's own admitted blindness to the emerging threat of ISIS, all of which suggest management failures at basic tasks that create an appetite for someone with Romney's executive experience--or any executive experience at all.
Romney's first challenge would be the purity tests of the GOP primaries. He'd face the same skepticism from social conservatives wary of his faith and Tea Partiers who don't think he's a genuine conservative. He'd face at least one tougher opponent speaking for this group this time in Sen. Ted Cruz, who has pointed to Romney's nomination as proof that the party loses when it picks candidates with malleable principles. Cruz also has a special and enduring aversion to the Affordable Care Act, which would keep Romney discussing (and dodging) his Massachusetts health care plan, a topic over which he usually stumbles.
Dickerson worries about Romney's "immigration problem" and his "self-deportation" comments, however, many Latinos are becoming just as disgusted with Democrats as they are with Republicans. Will this lessen the burden of Romney's comments four years earlier?
And, who can forget Mitt's "47 percent" video? Will the imaginary "Benghazigate" become sufficiently embedded in the public mind as a real scandal by then to offset, an ancient "loose remark" at an after dinner speech?
Nevertheless, as much as pundents scoff, I think Mitt Romney may be the GOP's strongest candidate in the generals and his strategy for the primaries will be to stick to the same plan that enabled his win last time.
If Romney chooses to run he will be well funded all the way through the primaries and will not really have to worry about the intimidating early hurdles in right-wing states. As long as he steadily accumulates delegates he can let Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachmann, Mario Rubio, Huckabee, etc and other favorite suns trade first places for the early hurdles, and splitting the hard right vote, as his total steadily rise and then he cleans up in the larger, more moderate late states.
Much of this latest round of Mitt Romney speculation can be traced back to Byron York's article last week, Romney 2016 is for real
Is Mitt Romney, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination and lost in 2008, ran again and won the nomination but lost the general election in 2012, really thinking about running yet again for president in 2016? Many Republicans have simply assumed not. Romney has seemed to discourage such talk in media appearances, and there has been a general belief that after losing as the party's nominee, the 67-year-old Romney would return to private life for good.
That belief is wrong. Romney is talking with advisers, consulting with his family, keeping a close eye on the emerging '16 Republican field, and carefully weighing the pluses and minuses of another run. That doesn't mean he will decide to do it, but it does mean that Mitt 2016 is a real possibility.
Nearly all of Romney's 2012 circle of advisers, finance people, and close aides remains intact. Many developed an extraordinary loyalty to Romney, who, in turn, has kept in close touch with them. Romney talks to some of them quite frequently in conversations that cover daily news, foreign and domestic policy, Hillary Clinton, the Republican field — everything that might touch on a 2016 campaign. "Virtually the entire advisory group that surrounded Mitt in 2012 are eager for him to run, almost to a man and a woman," says one plugged-in member of Romneyland.
Insiders and top donors are making it clear they would expect Romney to replace Stuart Stevens and Russ Schriefer as his top strategists.
I expect Mitt Romney to run and probably even have a fair chance to win the GOP nomination and be a much stronger candidate than last time - someone who could win the election given a couple billion dollars of funding advantage the a combination of "Democratic fatigue and Clinton fatigue." Perversely, Romney would run as the change candidate, possibly with the slogan, "Change, you can really believe in."
After his primary win we would appease the far right by choosing either Rand Paul, or Ted Cruz, probably the later, as his V.P.
Needless to say, I hope I'm wrong about this. I'd feel a lot more confident with any of the other presumed GOP 2016 candidates as the Republican nominee.
But, given that the 2014 elections are just a month and half away, we should probably be paying more attention to them. I'm going to write about these next. Sorry for the distraction, these articles just caught my eye.
11:03 AM PT: In the spirit of full disclosure, I guess I should come clean about a "potential conflict of interest" in my prediction that Mitt Romney will be the 2016 GOP nominee. I happen to have a collection of over 500 Mocking Mitt Romney cartoons and photos that could become quite valuable in such a scenario.
However, I assure you this has had no influence on my projection. (Pinnochio alert.)
11:06 AM PT: