Posted on 06/15/2014 5:10:43 PM PDT by SoConPubbie
Far from being excommunicated by Republicans after his loss to President Obama, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is enjoying a brand resurgence of late, drawing several potential 2016 candidates to his "ideas summit" this weekend in Utah and even earning some 2016 speculation himself.
Meanwhile, some other potential candidates are in Iowa for the state Republican Party's convention there Saturday. And not to be left out, Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., was in California Friday to raise money for the Republican gubernatorial candidate there and participate in a Facebook chat.
It all adds up to a busy weekend for the early 2016 Republican presidential sweepstakes.
In Utah, Romney has billed his summit as an opportunity for a new generation of conservative thinkers and political leaders to strategize about the best path forward for the party and the country. No fewer than six potential 2016 GOP candidates made the trek to the Park City, including Christie, Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Gov. Susana Martinez, R-Ohio, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who was Romney's running mate in 2012.
Romney once worried he'd be branded a "loser for life" by his party if he failed to unseat the president, but it hasn't quite worked out that way. Despite the crowd of up-and-comers at his summit, many people there were more abuzz about the possibility that Romney himself could jump into the race in 2016.
Rommey "is the only person that can fill the stage," said MSNBC host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough at a private dinner on the summit's opening night, according to The Washington Post.
"He would be a giant in a field of midgets," added Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat who's weighing a 2016 bid himself.
Romney has not entertained speculation that he could mount another bid, saying he's only interested in putting his stamp on the party going forward and positioning Republicans to win national elections. "The unavailable is always the most attractive, right?" he said, according to The Associated Press. "That goes in dating as well."
He dinged potential Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during a campaign-style speech at the summit, pointing to mounting violence in Iraq to argue that the foreign policy Clinton helped engineer as secretary of state has been a "monumental bust."
"Tragically, all we've fought for in Iraq, all that 4,500 American lives were shed to gain, is on the cusp, potentially, of vanishing," Romney said.
The speculation swirling around Romney, who was the establishment choice in 2012, could reflect broader dissatisfaction with the party's slate of potential 2016 candidates.
One establishment favorite, Christie, has been handicapped in recent months by the traffic scandal surrounding the George Washington Bridge. And GOP officials believe former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush would be a formidable candidate, but they worry he has not demonstrated the constitution required for a brutal presidential race.
Paul, an insurgent Republican viewed skeptically by the party brass, sharpened his pitch ahead of his speech in Utah, telling Republicans they must expand their support without watering down their message.
"Our base is not big enough to win national elections and we have to reach out to new people, and that means African-Americans, Hispanics, young people, single women," Paul told The Washington Post. "We have to have a message that we don't dilute or make no longer consistent with who we are, but that we take elements that really do appeal to people."
After his appearance at the summit, Paul left Utah for Iowa to speak at the Iowa Republican Party's biennial convention in Des Moines.
Also scheduled to speak to Iowa Republicans Saturday are Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., and former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who won the state's first-in-the-nation caucus during the his own 2012 presidential bid.
As they consider their future, Jindal, Paul and Santorum have all burnished their appeal among social conservatives - a voting bloc with particularly strong influence among Iowa Republicans.
Jindal and Santorum will return to Iowa in August along with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, to participate in the Family Leadership Summit, the organizers of that event announced Saturday, according to the Des Moines Register. Other potential but unconfirmed attendees at that gathering of Christian conservatives include Paul, Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Govs. Scott Walker, R-Wis., Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Christie.
Like Paul, Christie has counseled his party to reach out to Democrats and independents.
"If you want a candidate you agree with 100 percent of the time, look in the mirror," he said Friday during a fundraising trip to California to support Neel Kashkari, the Republican gubernatorial candidate there.
"I'm out here to support Neel, to let him know it can happen, but that you have to reach out to everybody," Christie said, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
During his trip, Christie also visited with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who raised money for his re-election bid, and participated in a live chat with Facebook users. In response to a question about congressional gridlock, Christie advised lawmakers to seek common ground to solve problems, the Los Angeles Times reports.
I can not conceive of any circumstances where I would vote for a pervert of that magnitude.
And the biggest part of the Obama mess has been socialized medicine which Romney was implementing in Massachusetts before Obama was on most people’s radar.
Mitt, is one of the progenitors of that and everyone who stumps for him fully deserves to get what that program delivers.
Death panels and all.
I have zero problem with people receiving the full undiluted measure of what they demanded at the ballot box.
Hillary will win if the GOP allows Romney to have the nomination. It will be all on them.
/johnny
Since that isn’t the situation, why go out of your way to promote the worst and most left wing republican nominee in history”
there aint enough Botox to make Willard Mitt Dorian Grey Romney look younger than Hillary...
As HR Perot proved, it you’ve got the billions, you can be a high profile politician.
`In at LEAST Three elections
Romney has used surrogates in Elections
to mawl conservatives, irreversibly.
WHY DO YOU DEFEND THAT?
or do you just defend his RomneyCARE/ObamaCARE?
He defends it because birds of a feather flock together.
Please give me a brake! Mitt has not grown a back bone or a set of balls. Nice guys should stay home as they do not have the eye of the Tiger. It’s time for someone that can handle them self in the sh*t.
Some of his voters didn’t know that like Romney, Perot was pro-abortion and anti-gun.
Kinda get that Geo Hamilton vibe with that pic.
I’d say by any standard he’s far more youthful looking than Hillary or BJ.
“If Mitt comes out swinging hard; at the dems, this time, I say, yes, give him another chance. If he interviews with Candy Crowley and effectively tells her to STFU, I will take notice and be impressed that maybe he finally gets it that the dems are not your freinds and never will be.”
You need some sort of a transplant!
Well I would. Really. But he won’t go away. He insists on sending his minions out onto places like FR to defend him so I gotta speak up.
Remember when Mom told us that people know you by the company you keep? Well that’s why. Seems that people forgot that when they go out and publicly state their support for abortion funding, homosexual backing pieces of garbage, so too are they.
And I want to make sure they know it ;)
I thought he did not want to be president anyways... so why interfere?
Voting for it is as stupid as voting Democrat because it's basically voting for the same thing.
Most Americans -- at least, the balance of them in legitimate voting numbers -- know this. It is WHY Romney lost and WHY he or someone like him would lose in 2016 or IF he won, would be full-bore statist leftist on homosexuality, abortion, health care, the environment -- people know this, at least the half-way cognizant legitimate voters. We're the majority -- the left has to cheat because of that fact.
Americans are a lot smarter than people give them credit, and in any case, they probably elected Mitt last time, but without my help (I voted 3rd party for the express purpose of reducing the liberal winner's mandate and am prepared to do so again). Vote fraud tips the balance; having a candidate whose only value is not being "the other guy," a means to vote "against" the other guy, makes people stay at home, though, so it had to have been surprisingly easy for the Democrats.
It’s beyond stupid after today and Iraq. It’s evil.
If they want more of the people that threw away all those lives, the maimings, the money by standing by and allowing Obama to let this happen, then they are as evil as the rest.
There is no excuse. All the facts are out there on GOP capitulation to this admin and it is the duty of every American to be informed. If they shirk that duty, they are what they are.
the problem.
We promote/select conservatives in the primaries, as in selecting Brat over Cantor. Failing that, we vote against the other side (0bama) in the general. That’s how it works, folks.
Wavy Wally, WHY are you in the Republican party? As opposed to the Democrat party? Please explain as simply and concisely as you can WHY you choose to be a "Republican" in political affiliation as opposed to "Democrat."
Please?
Thats how you work it. Which is why we are in this mess. Some of us vote for conservatives.
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