Mitt Romney has repeatedly stated that he will not seek the Presidency of the United States for a third time in 2016. At the same time he is campaigning across America for Republican candidates, raising money for his party and appearing fairly often on network news shows. Mrs. Romney’s visibility has also increased. It is fair to ask, therefore, what does all this mean?
Certainly one way to approach the question is to break down a possible Romney candidacy by looking at the negatives and the positives of a third Romney run for the nation’s highest office.
First the negatives. Romney will be 69 in 2016, which would make him one of the oldest men to ever assume the Presidency. He appears to be in good health, but that age would be a tough road for any person assuming the Presidency and the huge mess that Barack Obama has created in this nation.
Conversely, Hillary Clinton who will almost certainly be the next Democratic nominee will also be 69 years old in 2016. Vice President Joe Biden, a long shot for the Democratic nomination, will be 74. In recent polls Romney has not done well against Mrs. Clinton who would have several things going for her, the most formidable being the lure for a lot of voters to elect the first woman as President of the United States. As part of such a candidacy she would be a big draw to women and young voters. Most of the fawning and supportive mainstream media would certainly be in her corner.
Her candidacy would have the benefit of the political magic of her decadent husband Bill, the Democratic leftwing base, and almost unlimited campaign funding. She will claim “exposure” as a former First Lady, Senator from New York and four years as Secretary of State, a claim which is essentially facetious, since her record proves that her tenure in that office was mediocre at best.
Mrs. Clinton or any other Democratic candidate will have the benefit of a party that rallies its base and gets their supporters to the polls much better than the GOP. In 2012 America saw a campaign similar to the 1976 race where Mr. Obama, the least qualified and virtually failed President was a better “candidate” than Mr. Romney who was certainly the best man for the job but not the best “candidate.”
Should Romney run again, he would have to conduct a much better campaign. He would have to be more charismatic, more forceful and better define his vision for America. And, it should not be another campaign managed by the Romney family. He somehow would have to learn to go for the jugular, which he did not do in the foreign policy/national security debate with Obama in 2012.
The question of course remains, could he get the nomination against a large field that will almost certainly include some excellent and successful GOP governors, several has-beens, wannabes and sure losers? This writer does not see a circumstance where the GOP would draft Mitt Romney.
In the 2012 election too many Republican voters took Election Day off. Although Romney received 60,589,084 votes in 2012 compared to John McCain’s 59,597,520 in 2008, a large chunk of conservative Republicans and evangelical Americans did not vote for Romney because he was not conservative enough or because he is a “Mormon.” Those folks would have to come back to Romney in 2016 if he would have any hope of winning, especially since he could not expect support from the minority blocs in America.
The 2016 election will almost certainly be another election contest decided by the swing states, especially Florida, Virginia and Ohio. In 2012 Romney lost all three by fairly large margins.
Under the above circumstances are there are real positives in a 2016 Romney candidacy? The debacle that is Barack Obama and the damage and wreckage he has imposed on this nation and the world is mind boggling. Most Americans are angry, saddened and deeply frustrated. They are tired of an America where the economy is still faltering, where our security and safety are in jeopardy, where America’s position in the world is severely damaged, where Government doesn’t work as it should because of gridlock, where corruption is the name of the game in the executive branch and where violations of the United States Constitution are common. This writer believes that lots of American voters regret their votes for Obama, and realize that Mitt Romney would have been a much better choice.
So the question becomes, is there a man more qualified to restore America than Mitt Romney? Probably not. Romney would confront and deal with America’s great challenges. He wouldn’t be a timid and confused bystander like Obama. He would soon bring confidence and vitality back into the American economy. The middle class would be revitalized, while the 12-20 million people no longer looking for work and the chronically underemployed would once again find good jobs in an economy moving forward.
The IRS, the VA and the Justice Department would no longer operate as they have under Obama. The Military, Intelligence and the anti-terrorist sectors in our Government would be respected and listened to by the President. No more Benghazi’s! Our enemies and friends abroad would hear a clear voice and message from Washington. Leading from behind would be scrapped as a stupid and cruel joke. The Congress could once again become a working partner with the President and the political quagmire caused by Harry Reid and partisan bickering would be replaced by cooperation, consultation and results. Our Southern border would be effectively sealed. Domestic terrorism would no longer be disguised as “work place violence.”
Romney would vigorously deal with our huge national debt and also work to being the vast power of Federal bureaucrats, especially the EPA crowd, under control. Has Obama’s great American train wreck left open the door for a man America needs badly? Politics in America has gotten terribly strange.