The unwelcome candidate
United States Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, like the poor, will always be with us, writes Matt Lewis.
MITT ROMNEY just will not go away. That’s the consensus among American Republicans as the party’s 2012 presidential nominee continued to send signals that he was seriously flirting with another bid for the White House.
Aside from a handful of rich political donors, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks this is a good idea. I’ve yet to encounter someone anxious for Romney’s return. Not even the guy who literally had the Romney 2016 logo tattooed on his face wants it.
In fairness, it should be noted that – in this column last year – I observed that since his 2012 defeat, Romney had been proven right about a variety of issues.
This is true, but the last guy to pull off anything like such a comeback was Richard Nixon, who avenged his 1960 loss by winning in 1968. Before that, you have to go back to the 1800s.
The only compelling narrative for a Romney candidacy was contingent on his status as a reluctant candidate.
He was supposed to be drafted in. These scenarios were premised on the notion that establishment favourites such as Jeb Bush and Chris Christie might take a pass, opening the door for Romney to be pressed into service for the good of the party.
Ironically, Romney now makes it more likely a Tea Party candidate could win the nomination, since his candidacy would essentially divide the establishment support that might otherwise have gone to Bush or Christie.
We were told Romney could uniquely serve in this capacity, because he had the organisational ability to enter a campaign late in the game. ‘‘He could come on the scene around Labour Day [of 2015] because he’s able to flip his switch,’’ Scott Reed, a veteran strategist, told the Washington Post in August.
Mitt Romney may be hoping
for a comeback as a
Instead, his entire rationale is now kaput. Romney looks like someone who has elbowed his way to the dinner table. ‘‘I think Mitt Romney wanted to run all along,’’ said Stephen Hayes on the Fox News programme Special Report. ‘‘And this, I think this is going to be the fundamental challenge of a Romney candidacy. His problem, going back years, has been flip-flopping or inauthenticity – call it what you want. And I think he’s starting this race by pretending that he’s just now been called back into service when I think it’s pretty clear that this is something he was thinking about all along.’’
So why is he doing this? Some say it’s because there is bad blood between Romney and Jeb Bush.
Politics is also addictive. Running for president, James Carville likes to say, ‘‘is like having sex: no-one did it once and forgot about it’’.
My colleague Jamie Weinstein thinks Romney is simply bored, and cites this unidentified Romney ‘‘insider’s’’ quote to Yahoo News as evidence: ‘‘I last saw Mitt in December, and he was bored. He was watching the world blow up around him and feeling somewhat vindicated on a number of ideas he had put out there and positions he had taken and kind of wondering, ‘Is this the next 20 years of my life, just sitting here?’ He’s a purposedriven guy.’’
Or maybe it’s about money and turf? I asked Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor and a Romney rival in 2012, to help make sense of it.
‘‘I can’t help but think there’s a little bit of follow the money here,’’ he said.
Romney was the last nominee, he explained, and therefore he controlled the money. And now all of a sudden, Romney – this is my version here – is starting to see his donors checking out the hot new thing (as much as Jeb Bush can be the hot new thing) and he’s getting nervous, and thinking maybe he wants them back. There are some things that just won’t go away. There will always be wars and rumours of wars. The poor will always be with us. And so, too, it seems, will the Romneys.
Matt Lewis is a senior contributor at The Daily Caller website in Washington.