My Thoughts On Romney's "Run"

For a few weeks now, the conventional wisdom has been that Mitt Romney is running for the 2016 nomination. Not surprisingly, that raises a huge number of thoughts in my mind. Here goes...

● He’s Not Actually Running: My first thought upon hearing the news was that he’s not actually running. His wife seemed surprised by the idea and made it clear she won’t agree to another run; and I don’t see her changing her mind, not after the very firm stance she took. Romney will not ruin his marriage over this fool’s errand.

Moreover, Romney hasn’t done any of the intense effort it takes to be a viable candidate, e.g. fundraising, speeches, creating an agenda, door to door greetings, assembling of local, statewide and national teams, etc. With his prior Boy-Scout-like preparation efforts, this screams out that he’s not running.

“Ah hah! But don’t you see, Andrew?!!” scream the ideologues. “That’s the clever part! This is his shot at vengeance... he doesn’t care if he wins so long as he stops the Bush family from running again.”

//shakes head.

Look, I know the conventional wisdom storyline (Fox presented it all weekend): obsessively hating the Bush family, Romney decides to jump into the race to throw the election to someone other than Bush! Huzza! And with everyone knowing that Romney is obsessed and only cares about stopping Bush, the theory continues that we can dismiss things like his lack of a legitimate organization. Indeed, to the twisted contrary, his lack of preparation becomes self-serving proof of his obsession and his plan to run.

But that’s garbage.

First, this doesn’t fit his personality. Romney is not a guy who acts emotionally, and he lacks the Machiavellian instincts that would let him try to harm another person. Nor has there ever been any indication of any sort of obsession in his personality.

Secondly, to make even a fake run will require something like $100 million. There is no evidence anywhere that Romney would be willing to spend that kind of money just to tweak the son of someone he dislikes.

Third, even a fake run requires basic campaigning, which means subjecting Romney and his family to a death-march level of travel, appearances, meetings, speeches, dinners, etc. This could destroy his family. Would he do that just to tweak some guy?

Forget it. The onlyTHE ONLY reason Romney would run would be that he honestly thinks he can win, and he knows that’s not happening. Why? Read on.

● America Hates Losers: With America’s obsession with winners, Romney has no chance. Basically, when you fight in some sort of head to head competition, America judges you on the outcome. Win and you can do no wrong so long as you keep winning. But lose and you are shunned and pushed aside for the next best thing. Indeed, ask the Super Bowl losers, each of whom are forgotten, having been dismissed as the biggest loser of the year, even if they dominated the league until a last second dramatic loss in the Super Bowl itself. This is no different.

When politicians lose the big one, they are finished. They aren’t given a second shot at the nomination. They may get a cushy job on Crossfire or they may become respected elder statesmen and are slowly ushered off to pasture, but no one on their side wants to fight the powerful American impulse to write them off as losers. Why pick a candidate who faces such an uphill struggle before even saying a word? That’s just not smart.

● Why Else Would Romney “Run”: So if Romney isn’t running, what is he doing? He could just be trying to raise his status again now that the election is upon us. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was all followed by a surprise book. It also wouldn’t surprise me if he’s just messing with the media.

● Finally, Would I Support Romney?: Absolutely, but there are caveats here. Despite my initial misgivings about Romney, it soon struck me that he could very possibly be the genuine Reagan II. His lose was a true lose to the country and the cause of conservatism. So I would wholeheartedly support getting him into the White House. That said, however, being a prior loser is just such a huge burden to overcome that I simply don’t think he can win. So, to me, it makes no sense to back him.

Thoughts?