Talk of Romney in 2016 Continues to Grow

In recent days and weeks there has been renewed speculation that Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president will again be a candidate in 2016. There has been some talk about this for months, but it has grown louder in recent days. Yesterday, The Washington Post described Mr. Romney’s evolving potential candidacy as “The road from ‘I’m not doing it again’ to ‘Circumstances can change’ is paved with favorable polls, 2012 predictions that came true and public statements from supporters.”

Last week in an article titled “Romney 2016 is Real,” The Washington Examiner wrote “Romney is talking with advisers, consulting with his family, keeping a close eye on the emerging ’16 Republican field, and carefully weighing the pluses and minuses of another run.” Also last week, Jonathan Last at The Weekly Standard posed the rhetorical question of whether the possibility of a Mitt Romney 2016 candidacy is real and offered the response “Do I really for real think this is real? Oh yes. I believe that it will be a very short hop for the Romneys to talk themselves into ‘America needs me/him now.’”

For Mr. Romney there is no downside to this speculation at this time. If he ultimately decides not to run, a few weeks of generally positive media coverage and a brief return to the almost national spotlight will have done him no harm. However, if Mr. Romney decides to run, it is to his benefit to get in the race sooner rather than later.

Despite Mr. Romney’s defeat in 2012 to a vulnerable incumbent President Barack Obama, the rationale for another Romney candidacy, at least from a strategic perspective, is reasonably clear. None of the Republicans whose names are most frequently mentioned now, even those of potentially strong candidates like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul or Chris Christie have ever raised the money and built the kind of organization necessary to run for president. There is only one Republican who has built a legitimate presidential campaign structure and is not to old to run in 2016. At least for now, that alone is reason why a Romney 2016 candidacy cannot be ignored.

If Mr. Romney runs in 2016, it could be a very different race for the former Massachusetts governor, perhaps more difficult than he might realize now. In 2012, Romney ran against a very weak field of candidates. Potentially strong opponents like Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman never put their campaigns together. Other major candidates, notably Rick Perry, turned out to to be terrible campaigners. Ultimately nobody raised enough money to compete with Mr. Romney who when 2012 began had raised more money than the next two Republicans combined. Mr. Romney’s strongest primary opponents were former speaker Newt Gingrich who relied heavily on the donations of eccentric right wing billionaire Sheldon Adelson, Rick Santorum who simply never did the work to raise the money to compete, and Ron Paul who most traditional Republicans did not like. Despite this advantage in fundraising and organization, Mr. Romney still only won 40% of the votes cast in that primary suggesting that he was never beloved within his own party.

That was the context in which Mr. Romney was able to, relatively early in the campaign season, win support from most Republican opinion leaders and fundraisers. If this time around any of the other Republican candidates can convince those political and financial elites that they too are serious candidates, Mr. Romney will no longer enjoy the monopoly or support from those groups that he had in 2012. That will make for a very different primary campaign this time for Mr. Romney. Right now the attention and mentions of a possible campaign in 2016 is good for the defeated 2012 Republican nominee, but turning that buzz and media attention into a successful primary campaign may prove a lot tougher against a stronger and better funded primary, especially as some of those candidates are already getting commitments from important donors.

Nominating Mr. Romney may seem to some Republicans like a quick and easy solution to a difficult primary season, but the candidate who lost for the party in 2012 might do just as poorly in 2016. In 2012, Romney made a tactical decision to position himself as a true conservative across the spectrum of issues. On balance, that was a mistake. It helped him get through a primary season he was going to win anyway but made it harder for him to win voters from the center in the general election, while never enjoying more than begrudging support from his party’s conservative base. That too is part of Romney’s legacy and will not serve him well in 2016. If Cruz or Rubio or another well funded conservative emerges, Romney will be vulnerable from the right in a primary. Even if he manages to win the nomination, Romney’s efforts to position himself, not always plausibly, as a right wing conservative and his unfortunate sound bites from 2012 will make it difficult for Romney to expand Republican support in what will likely be a difficult general election campaign.

By all means. Let's all just keep on voting for those proven GOPe-certified RINO candidates.

Just kidding.

No more voting for RINOs ever, under any circumstances. Period.

In the past I voted for McCain, and Romney nationally, and for Scott Brown in Massachusetts. But I guess it depends on your belief in how far gone this nation is, and what it will take to restore it, assuming that is even possible at this point.

Personally, I now believe that the only way to save America at this point (assuming such a thing is still possible) is to put conservatives in political offices and enact an agenda based on free markets, limited government and the rule of law. As long as we have a Republican party that actively opposes those ends (and we do, obviously), then I believe our only (slim) hope is drastic action.

As long as the Republican Party establishment believes that it can continue to survive by being Democrat-lite, and that it can continue to maintain power while actively fighting against the core principles of liberty, free markets and Constitutional law, it will never make the necessary change of direction.

Only when the Republican party understands that it must change or die can we hope to turn this country around. Our too-long-serving entrenched establishment politicians can still enjoy their comfy lifestyles, their wealth, power and prestige as members of a minority party. So why should they bother to change direction?

Surely a John Boehner (or an Eric Cantor -- had he not been defeated -- or a Mitch McConnell) would be just as happy to be minority leaders if the election cycle didn't go their way. Yes, they would prefer to be majority leaders, but what good would it do them if a conservative Republican Party won the majority and then threw them out of their cushy positions and all those perks, replacing them with real conservatives?

Ask yourself -- which do you think Mitch McConnell would prefer -- a majority Republican party in which he was stripped of his position by a conservative majority, or a minority Republican party in which he could remain Senate minority leader because the majority of Republican senators were RINOs?

You may argue that we have no time to wait for the Republicans to realize that their only choice is to change or die as a viable party. But if we don't have time for that, then what makes you think we have time to wait for the RINOs and the GOP-e to pursue a "moderately marginal" course of action designed only to maintain their personal fiefdoms at the expense of a free America operating under the rule of Constitutional law?

The GOP had majority power in the House and Senate, and occupied the White House, 10 years ago. What did all that power do to move the agenda of liberty forward? Answer: nothing.

A GOP that cannot even sell liberty, limited governments and free markets to the American people is worse than useless. It is a party of tyranny enablers, and I will have none of it.

Unbelievably, today we once again face the stark choice between liberty and death.

Once again, these are the times that try men's souls. Conservatives need to be waging aggressive war against the totalitarian leftist tyrants on all fronts -- in the branches of government at the federal and state level, in academia, in the media, through public demonstrations, and in the voting booth.

Many argue that we must continue to vote for "the most electable conservative," which means "vote for the RINO if no conservative is running." But I respectfully disagree with that choice. I am done enabling.

If we really are to lose the greatest country in the history of the world, then let's at least be fighting for it when it goes down.

And who knows, maybe -- just maybe, if we show sufficient resolve and conviction -- divine Providence will once again provide the support that gave our founders their unlikely victory in 1776, and grant us once again the "new birth of freedom" that Lincoln called for a century later.

If you reward bad behavior, you get more of it. The RINOs have managed to own the Republican party because they know that conservatives have nowhere else to go.

To continue voting for RINOs is to play right into that strategy. The RINOs have become so certain of your vote that they actually believe they can continue to stay in power by declaring outright war on the conservative base.

And when they do that, they are actually declaring war on core American principles -- war on liberty, war on free market economics, and even war on the Constitution.

The RINO Republicans cannot even make an appeal to the traditional American love of those principles, because they have lost the credibility and historical awareness to articulate them, let alone promote them.

Yes, having Harry Reid continue as majority leader is a horrific scenario. But having RINO Republicans win that office is only a marginally better short-term outcome.

And in some ways it is even worse, because as the RINOs “reach across the aisle" to promote marginally modified Democrat policies, they give the Democrats cover from the well-deserved blame for the horrific damage that they have unleashed on our country in the last five years.

America is out of time now. We cannot continue on the current path. And as things continue to deteriorate, who do you think the voters will blame if the Republicans are in power when the 2016 elections come around?

You think Mitch McConnell's senate will repeal Obamacare? You think it will take the right position on immigration? You think a Republican Senate will vote against Obama’s left wing Supreme Court nominations?

America needs clear, passionate and articulate voices to advocate and defend our founding principles, to secure our borders, to preserve our nation, and to take legislative and administrative steps to turn this country around, assuming it still can be turned around.

Majority leader Mitch McConnell will NEVER provide that voice or leadership. He is not the guy to turn things around for our formerly blessed nation.

But in 2016 a newly terrified Republican party will be forced to court instead of alienate the conservative base, and come 2017 will be in a position to put the party and our nation on the proper path. Such a duly chastised party has a real chance of nominating a Ted Cruz, instead of a Mitt Romney who, according to last night's panel on Fox News, is at this point the likely Republican presidential nominee.

So in November, for those whose only choice in the mid-terms is between a RINO and a Democrat, I urge them to stay home on election day, or vote third-party -- anything to prove the RINOs wrong in thinking that they can stay in power by literally declaring war on conservatism.

Think about it.

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