This Mitt Romney story, from Utah's Deseret News, has been making the right-wing rounds all week. So did you really think Mitt finally got the message that he should stop thinking about running for president after Jeb Bush made his move? Nahhh -- and what's keeping his hopes up is a highly implausible scenario:
Mitt Romney is eyeing a third run for the White House and will get in the race in the coming months if he doesn't like how the GOP field is looking, his longtime friend Kem Gardner said Monday.
"I know exactly what Mitt's going to do," Gardner, a real estate developer who helped bring Romney to Utah to lead the 2002 Winter Olympics, told the Deseret News....
Gardner ... said Romney is watching to see how the other potential Republican candidates fare, especially Bush and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, before deciding whether to run again after losses in 2008 and 2012....
"If it's Ted Cruz that's the candidate, he's in. If it's Jeb Bush, he's probably not," Gardner said....
Um, I don't know if anyone's noticed this, but Ted Cruz is not doing particularly well in the Republican polls -- in the Real Clear Politics polling average, he's eighth, at a mere 5.5%, behind Bush, Christie, Ryan, Paul, Huckabee, Carson, and Walker. I know many people fear Cruz, but he seems to be just too snarly to be a presidential nominee. (We usually want our nominees to convey a simple, sunny optimism -- even Nixon learned to fake that.)
We think of Mitt (and most Republicans) as stable, emotionally uncomplicated types, but that's a misleading stereotype in Mitt's case -- he clearly has a desperate craving for this Walter Mitty rescue fantasy. He's clearly telling himself that he'd prefer to be just a retired grandpa, but darn it, his country needs him!
... Spencer Zwick, who raised $1 billion for Romney's 2012 campaign, ... said Romney is getting plenty of encouragement to run, both from the donors who funded his previous campaigns, as well as those who now wished he'd beaten President Barack Obama.
"I hope he does. So do many others. That doesn't mean he will. But there are many people who are hopeful," Zwick said. "Mitt Romney is too much of a patriot to just concede the presidency to the Democrats."
And you know what his problem is? He's bored!
Gardner offered a different reason for Romney's interest.
"Mitt is so restless," he said. "It was fine during the (2014) Senate campaigns because he went to 27 states" to campaign for GOP candidates. "He really felt like he had something to do."
It's different now that the midterm elections that saw Republicans take control of the U.S. Senate are over, and Romney, along with his wife, Ann, author of a family cookbook, are spending more time at their homes in Utah.
"He's here without a rudder and getting restless," Gardner said. "There's only so many cookbooks you can write."
Er, Mitt? Here's a suggestion: Get a freakin' job. Go do some actual work like the rest of us.
Wait, what? Mitt has a job? With his son's private equity firm? Yeah, but that's a cushy gig -- he works one week a month. During the last presidential campaign, Romney said, "For the next generation of retirees we should slowly raise the retirement age.” Well, he's 67, and wasn't quite 60 the last time he held down a full-time job. Forty hours a week, Mitt! Otherwise, you're a taker!
Crossposted at No More Mr. Nice Blog
