He's Back? Mitt Romney Says He's Considering A Third Presidential Bid

Third time's a charm? Maybe? Former Massachusetts governor and failed 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is considering yet another run for president. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Romney made the remarks during a session Friday afternoon with a few dozen top GOP donors in midtown Manhattan." 

Obviously considering a run is not the same as announcing a run. But these are the sort of private-public remarks that are presumably designed to leak and serve as a trial balloon.

The question Romney needs to answer, and the question I don't think he can, is why take another shot. The Journal suggests some potential reasons: 

The former Massachusetts governor didn't give a timetable for making a decision about another White House run, but he cited unrest overseas as one of the reasons he's considering another campaign. He also mentioned the long-term health of the economy.

Basically, there are issues in the news that I care about.

That's more or less why Romney ran before, and it's still not a very good reason to run for president. I think it's pretty clear at this point that Romney is someone who has an innate sense that he would make a good president, and so whenever anything is happening he has a feeling that America would be better if he were in the Oval Office. It's not that he really has any particular ideas or policies that he wants to implement; he just believes we'd all be better off if whatever policies we do implement went through him first. 

So far, a majority of American voters have yet to agree. 

Comments

[CE]

Romney's running AGAIN? Doesn't this mean the media have to refer to him as "perennial presidential candidate" Mitt Romney, like they do with Ron Paul and Democrat Lyndon LaRouche?

[Charles Easterly]

I doubt it CE, since each time Governor Romney ran he was described as a "first tier" and a "front runner" candidate from the very beginning before any polling data were available.

Representative Paul, as you may recall, was almost always described as a "dark horse" and "long shot" if he was mentioned at all.

I don't recall Mr. LaRouche being mentioned at all except in the comment sections.

[John]

He should run as performance art. His entire campaign should be based on the slogan "I Told You So". Just spend a year rubbing the media's noses in how fucking ignorant they were in 2012.

[Tony]

He told us so what? He promised to get unemployment below 6% in his first term. Looks like Obama managed that just fine without him.

[Cytotoxic]

He barely did that with a low labor participation rate. Obama continues to be a bungling oaf and an economic illiterate.

[Tony]

(The president alone doesn't really have any power over the economy.)

[Homple]

Except when he's a Republican and things go bad. Then they're economically omnipotent. I know, because I've listened to NPR since the Reagan administration.

[Tony]

Meh, I speak metonymically of Bush. In reality he, the person, seemed to possess a sort of cat-like awareness of his surroundings, and by that I mean twitchy and reactive with a brain the size of an almond. The enemy of a healthy economy is the Republican party, including whichever dancing simian they install in the oval office.

[Redmanfms]

Oh yeah, the '30s and the late '70s were times of great economic growth and prosperity...

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Fuck. Fuck... just, fuck. Is Mormon life so boring that this guy needs to get back in the saddle for the third time? Can someone find him a mistress or a boy toy or a drug habit like the other Rs have to keep him occupied?

[Stormy Dragon]

he cited unrest overseas as one of the reasons he's considering another campaign

Because there's no way that foreign militants would dare defy Mitt Romney.

[Cytotoxic]

I would take Jeb Bush over this loser any day.

[Root Boy]

I doubt there is much difference, but Bush has that messianic crap going on like his brother more than Mitt.

Mitt would probably disappoint a lot of constitutionalists and libertarians by being Mr technocrat (top men and all that) but there is a tiny chance he'd say "not the job of the feds" for things that Jeb would love to dive into (local schools to fuck up even more).

[John]

I think you are right about that. Jeb would be better on taxes and a few other things. But he would really suck on schools and various "we are going to do God's work and save the Children" crap.

Its a tough call.

[Root Boy]

Make my choice for the Libertarian in 2016 very easy if either of them get the nod from the Repubs.

[Charles Easterly]

Do you think Governor Johnson will run again?

[Cytotoxic]

I think the anti-CC pushback will be enough to blunt Jeb's love of centralizing education.

Mitt's one real position was a 'DEY TRK R JERBS' line on immigration. He really believed in American jobs for MERICANS. Jeb is a lot more reasonable.

Honestly, I am starting to warm to a Hitlary presidency.

[JEP]

Honestly, I am starting to warm to a Hitlary presidency.

Like you just pissed yourself or something....

[Charles Easterly]

I hope he or she was being sarcastic.

[Cytotoxic]

I wasn't. I do not want a GOP president with total congressional control if it isn't Rand, someone close to him ideologically, or maybe Cruz.

[Charles Easterly]

"Honestly, I am starting to warm to a Hitlary presidency."

You wrote that and now you confirm that you were not being sarcastic.

I think I understand that you want "Team Blue" to suffer from what a Senator/Secretary Clinton Presidency would unleash upon our country and the rest of the world, but I don't understand why you would want those affected to endure it for your perceived benefits.

[Careless]

You are so predictably retarded.

[Careless]

Because he's an open borders nut like you, I'm sure

[JEP]

Why, America? WHY? Can't we just have a single chance to choose a reasonable, mediocre, non-idiot for president?

Why can't we have nice things?

[John]

I think "reasonable, mediocre, non idiot" is a perfect description for Romney. I would call him stupid. And he is not horrible. And if anything he is too "reasonable" and would never actually try and change anything.

[Ron]

No change is better than all the changes this president has given us either way if Mitt or Jeb or Chris run I'm not voting. I'm tired of least evil choice between a lefty and a less lefty I want a real choice.

[JEP]

I might have said the same thing about Bush if I was old enough to be more politically aware at the time.

But Bush had other people in his administration pushing to do things. *cough* Cheney *cough*

I guess we need someone who won't do anything on his/her own and actively stop other people from doing things.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, we're being punished for giving up our liberties, free markets, and limited government. And even the slightest trace of fiscal sanity.

[obadiahlynch]

That'll be the Dem candidate.

As usual.

[Bill Dalasio]

...but he cited unrest overseas as one of the reasons he's considering another campaign.

Which means there's even less reason to vote for him than last time. To my knowledge, Mr. Romney has neither any particularly impressive foreign policy credentials nor a foreign policy framework that differs at all from the rest of the GOP neocons.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Right, exactly. This guy isn't Eisenhower. Hell, he isn't even Hoover. Why should we care what he thinks about foreign policy?

[Cytotoxic]

Not being Eisenhower is a good thing. Ike did a terrible thing by lining up with the USSR against the 1956 campaign to liberate the Suez and Egypt from Nasser.

[Homple]

Amen to that. Eisenhower's Suez botch was one of the many uckfups that made the Middle East what it is today.

[Robert]

Which Hoover? Herbert? J. Edgar? The vacuum? Vote Electrolux!

[Root Boy]

Hey man, he did his church service in France (or maybe that was his kids dodging military service) so he knows what's going on.

Speaking of France, why isn't Kerrey talked about as running for Prez -- he's got experience in it and speaks French. Plus he was a badass in the 'Nam

[Pro Libertate]

I hear he was the basis for Willard in Apocalypse Now. True story--he went to Cambodia and killed Marlon Brando with a machete.

[Bill Dalasio]

He's got the cap to prove it.

[Pro Libertate]

McCain, of course, was the basis for Col. Kilgore.

[Almanian!]

"You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill."

[Pro Libertate]

Yep. Then the machete. Kerry is a lot tougher than he looks. "Boston. Shit. I'm still only in Boston."

[Root Boy]

Wicked Strong!

[Ron]

On the foreign dealing front didn't he at least run an olympics which is far more experience then Obama ever had at anything.

[Root Boy]

Hell, I had more foreign experience by the time I made LCpl in the Marines than Obama, and that dipshit grew up in Indonesia.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I had more foreign experience by the time I graduated from high school than pretty much all politicians.

[Charles Easterly]

Leave the Turkish boyfriend out of the conversation Kristen.
Sheesh.

(That was a joke. I hope that you took it well)

[obadiahlynch]

Except killing ObL of course. And not losing all those wars. Obie's been dynamite at succeeding where Team R fails.

[Fist of Etiquette]

He's going to strap his political aspirations to the roof of his car and drive them all the way to 1600 PA Ave!

[Stickler Meeseeks]

Mitt is a loser, worse than McCain, and it's time for him to go away. As an Establishment country club Republican, expect Jeb to lose, too, and for reasons similar to Mitt's.

[Root Boy]

I would add he seems like a good guy. Stood next to him on the terminal train in Denver last year. He carried his own bags, had one guy with him, that's it.

Billy Jeff would have had a mob of hookers, Hillary would have a mob of bodyguards to carry her toothbrush and makeup, Obama will have a battalion of sycophants and all three would not be there because they will be riding on some billionaire pedo's private jet.

[The Last American Hero]

So The Stupid Team ran him in 2012, in which all their hopes hung on trying to make the election a referendum on Obamacare. Now in 2016, we will have seen the mess that is Obamacare as the IRS starts going after folks and as the employer mandate starts to kick in. So naturally the Stupid Team intends to run the guy who was responsible for the forerunner to Obamacare again.

There's a reason they call them the Stupid Team.

[Tony]

You're not going to win from inside the FOX bubble. It is in your own personal best interest to stop consuming partisan propaganda. It's told you you were winning when you were losing more times than you should tolerate by now. Obamacare is succeeding, and nobody but buck-toothed morons care about the phony IRS witchhunt. I'm telling you this as a favor.

[EdWuncler]

And you need to leave the Huffington Post/ MSNBC bubble. No matter how many stories of people getting their premiums raised or getting dropped from their insurance altogether you're just going to parrot the party line.

[Tony]

It's true that whatever reality is, what matters is what people are taught to believe. The misinformation campaign against the ACA has been relentless and successful.

[Cytotoxic]

The misinformation campaign is being carried out by assholes like you. The ACA hasn't improved healthcare, end of story.

It is in your own personal best interest to stop consuming partisan propaganda.

PROJECTION TIME

[Tony]

You don't get to say that about me, as I spend an incredibly stupid amount of time reading a libertarian magazine and its followers. I make it a point to enter the rightwing bullshit sphere on a daily basis so that I know what quasi-racist trumped-up nonsense they'll be whining about tomorrow.

Having been on a climate change thread or two, I know that you guys are coincidentally all incapable of mashing your fingers in the direction of Google and finding reliable sources of information, so I guess you'll just have to stick with your vague, meaningless conclusions about the ACA instead of what's really happening in the healthcare economy.

[guitargeek]

Is this guy for real?

[Tony]

I'll be here all week.

[Yet another Kevin]

Yeah, at first I thought he was satire, too. But he's the genuine article. The others here argumentatively beat the crap out of him repeatedly and he's blissfully unaware he was ever beat up. It's his gift.

Like a little Energizer Bunny of Bullshit, he just keeps going and going...

[Redmanfms]

I know that you guys are coincidentally all incapable of mashing your fingers in the direction of Google and finding reliable sources of information

Yup, nobody ever posts data in response to you.

Oh yeah, I forgot that "reliable sources" are sources that reliably agree with you. Anything that doesn't support the revolution is untruth.

[Careless]

You think that they call Republicans "the stupid team" inside the FOX bubble?

[obadiahlynch]

More than likely, sure.

[Tony]

I watched that documentary, and I oppose this move mostly because I don't want to see this genuinely decent man lose again.

[EdWuncler]

I didn't vote for Romney but it really grinded my gears watching the DNC paint him out to be this awful monster when in reality he is a moderate East Coast Republican who would have not done any substantially different then Obama. I remember having people on facebook proclaiming that if elected he would force women to get back alley abortions and putting gays in concentration camps.

[Tony]

We don't vote for people anymore, we vote for parties. Mitt Romney was not going to sit there and veto a bunch of legislation from what would have been a strong and, of course, very conservative Republican Congress.

[Careless]

Oh, and remember the panic from idiots convinced Romney wanted to ban tampons?

[Jgalt1975]

I'm hoping he goes with, "Mitt Romney: Now More than Ever" as a campaign slogan.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I'm Mitt Romney and I'm on the attack -
Like Freddy and Jason I keep coming back.

[Homple]

You're getting into Harold Stassen territory here, Mitt.

[bostonaod]

Is it possible this is a favor Rand extracted from his 2012 endorsement/support? At the least, this will fracture Jeb's support and fundraising amongst the establishment types.

[obadiahlynch]

After watching Romney's pathetic performance in the 2012 debates I find it unlikely he could hold his own against any of the likely Dem challengers, frankly.

[Yet another Kevin]

Whether he wins in the debates or not, he may very well lose to whichever waste product the Dems run. It would be pure stupidity of the GOP to run Romney again. So I'm thinking it's going to happen.