Magic Pants for Pres!!!

[Gob]

Mitt Romney has been reviving his national network of political supporters and donors for a third run at the White House, US media report.



One Republican source told the Washington Post the defeated 2012 candidate "almost certainly will" launch a 2016 presidential campaign.

Last week he told Republican donors in New York he was interested in running.

If he does, he could be up against Jeb Bush for the party nomination and then Hillary Clinton in a general election.

The Washington media is abuzz with reports that Mr Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, has spent the past few days reaching out to political allies and potential sources of campaign funding.

The Post reports that his wife Ann has come round to the idea, although there are still some reservations among his five sons.

[rubato]

Well the 47% who he said were parasites and slackers in the last election have gone down to only 40%.

But then the credit for that goes to Obama.

So fuck him. But, mind you, I hope he runs.

yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

I hope he runs, because I'm hoping that his money scares off viable moderate candidates like it did last time, leaving us once again with a GOP field consisting of Mittens and a cast of crazies, just like last time.

[BoSoxGal]

[Big RR]

Be careful what you wish for Scooter; after all, W was president for 8 years even though many (including me) underestimated him as a candidate and couldn't possibly have guessed how bad a president he'd be.

[Scooter]

Sure but GWB could appeal to moderates. Could you imagine anyone in Romney's famous "middle 6%" that would have voted for any of the nutjobs he beat for the nomination, when none of them could even bring themselves to vote for him?

[Scooter]

Case in point - Mike Huckabee has decided that the Obamas are horrible parents for allowing their close-to-voting-age daughter to listen to music by Beyoncé, and describing Beyoncé and Jay Z's marriage as a prostitute-pimp relationship.

Never mind that he has alienated every black voter who MIGHT have considered themselves conservative enough to vote Republican, this is PRECISELY the sort of boneheaded comment that has previously turned off anyone that isn't white, toothless, barefooted and married to two of his own sisters.

And primary season is still a year away. As a certain Republican was fond of saying, "bring it on!!!"

[Big RR]

Sure but GWB could appeal to moderates. Could you imagine anyone in Romney's famous "middle 6%" that would have voted for any of the nutjobs he beat for the nomination, when none of them could even bring themselves to vote for him?

Probably not, but then in 2000 I didn't think many moderates (or thinking people) would have pulled the lever for W and was proven wrong; it just scares me I might be wrong again (especially with your quotes from Huckabee) .

[rubato]

Case in point - Mike Huckabee has decided that the Obamas are horrible parents for allowing their close-to-voting-age daughter to listen to music by Beyoncé, and describing Beyoncé and Jay Z's marriage as a prostitute-pimp relationship.

Never mind that he has alienated every black voter who MIGHT have considered themselves conservative enough to vote Republican, this is PRECISELY the sort of boneheaded comment that has previously turned off anyone that isn't white, toothless, barefooted and married to two of his own sisters.

And primary season is still a year away. As a certain Republican was fond of saying, "bring it on!!!"

He is going after the "Hypocritical Right-Wing scold" role held by Bill Bennett.


yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

And while he criticizes the Obamas for their daughters' music choices, Huckabee has a son with a history of torturing animals. As these folks put it:


You really could never make this shit up.

[Lord Jim]

I'm not at all surprised to see so many Democrats delighted at the prospect of a Romney candidacy...

If I were a Democrat, I'd be delighted too...

There is absolutely positively no decent (or even minimally politically sane) rationale for Romney running again. None, zero, zip, nada, bupkiss...

There's no such thing as an actual "Romney constituency"; there's no such thing as a "Romneyite". There ain't nobody (well, except for Democrats) clamoring for this absolutely atrocious idea...

Hillary Clinton is a highly vulnerable and eminently beatable candidate. She's one of those folks who the more the public see of her, the less they like her. (One need only look at the way her personal popularity numbers have fallen off a cliff with everyone but partisan Democrats since she left the State Department and re-entered the political arena to see the evidence of this.)

However, Mitt Romney is one of those types of people too...the more you see and hear him, the less you like him...

I don't see a Romney candidacy discouraging anyone seriously considering running from getting into the race. (Certainly not Jeb Bush)

Romney's a wealthy man, but it's highly questionable how many of his well heeled previous backers are interested in pissing their money away on a sure-fire looser:

Some K Street donors slow to commit to another Romney bid

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney cannot count on his most prolific K Street fundraisers to swiftly back his third attempt for the presidency — as some of the biggest bundlers who supported his 2012 campaign either remain on the sidelines or already have committed to help advance Jeb Bush's White House ambitions.

Dirk Van Dongen, president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and a veteran GOP fundraiser, was among the most generous K Street bundlers in Romney's campaign, according to a tally by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. This time around, he's backing Bush and will host two gatherings at his office next week for Bush to meet other GOP lobbyists and the heads of key trade associations.

Van Dongen, who also raised money for the presidential campaigns of Bush's father and brother, praised Bush for emphasizing rebuilding the middle class as part of his early messaging. "I will do everything I can to help" the former Florida governor, he said.

David Beightol, another lobbyist who raised substantial sums for Romney in 2012, called Bush and Romney "both high-quality people" but has not committed to either. "Like a lot of people, I'm torn," he said. "They are making it tough on us."

Romney roiled the Republican field last week when he told a small gathering of Republican donors that he was seriously weighing a 2016 presidential bid. On Friday, the former Massachusetts governor is scheduled to speak to the GOP faithful gathered in San Diego for the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee.

It will be his first public speech since his surprise announcement to donors.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli ... /21801211/

Mitt Romney backlash intensifies

“Recycled.” Not the “new blood” the GOP needs. A man who “had his shot.” A “terrible candidate.”

A Republican backlash against Mitt Romney that had been simmering for days boiled over on Wednesday as conservatives across the GOP spectrum panned the prospect of another presidential bid by the former Massachusetts governor and two-time loser on the national stage.

Leading the anti-Romney charge was the voice of the GOP establishment wing, the Wall Street Journal editorial page. “The question the former Massachusetts Governor will have to answer,” the newspaper wrote, “is why he would be a better candidate than he was in 2012. … The answer is not obvious.”

The Journal’s owner, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, piled on: “He had his chance, he mishandled it, you know? I thought Romney was a terrible candidate.”

And in a Wednesday evening interview with POLITICO, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who’s considering a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, said that the reemergence of Romney could offset the Republicans’ advantage if their Democratic opponent is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“I think the best way to counter something from the past is with something new,” Walker said.

On it went from there.

The critical reception marked the latest stage of post-2012 conservative sentiment toward Romney. In the immediate aftermath of his loss, he was the feckless, wooden candidate who blew a prime opportunity to snatch the White House from an unpopular Democratic incumbent. Next came the “maybe he wasn’t so bad, after all” phase, when Romney seemed vindicated by President Barack Obama’s recurring second-term missteps. That lasted through most of 2014.

Now it’s reality-check time. The faded memories of Romney’s 2012 shortcomings are snapping back into focus as he drifts, with apparent seriousness, toward yet another run for the White House. The harshly negative reaction presents an early test of Romney’s resolve, against what’s certain to be a more formidable field than he encountered last time.

An opinion piece titled “The problem with Romney nostalgia,” by the conservative writer Jonah Goldberg, was typical of the backlash.

“The problem is that ‘Romney for president’ is now an art-house film thinking it’s a blockbuster franchise and that there’s a huge market for another sequel,” Goldberg wrote. “There’s not.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/m ... z3Oz5Uwh1n

[Lord Jim]

I think yesterday's WSJ editorial got it exactly right... (Except that it's a little too kind):

Romney Recycled

If Mitt Romney is the answer, what is the question? We can think of a few worthy possibilities, though one that doesn’t come immediately to mind is who would be the best Republican presidential nominee in 2016.

Mr. Romney told donors last week he is mulling a third run for the White House, confirming cheering whispers from his coterie of advisers. The question the former Massachusetts Governor will have to answer is why he would be a better candidate than he was in 2012.

The answer is not obvious. The logic offered by his admirers is that voters have a case of remorse about rejecting Mr. Romney in 2012, he can raise money and knows how to run a campaign, and even Ronald Reagan didn’t win until his third try.

The Gipper analogy is a stretch. Reagan’s first effort was belated in 1968, he nearly upset President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976, and when he did finally win the nomination in 1980 he also won the general election. Mr. Romney lost the nomination decisively to John McCain in 2008, and he defeated a historically weak field in 2012 thanks mainly to his ability to raise more money and then pound his competitors with negative ads.

Mr. Romney is a man of admirable personal character, but his political profile is, well, protean. He made the cardinal mistake of pandering to conservatives rather than offering a vision that would attract them. He claimed to be “severely conservative” and embraced “self-deportation” for illegal immigrants, a political killer. But he refused to break from his RomneyCare record in Massachusetts even though it undermined his criticism of ObamaCare. A third campaign would resurrect all of that political baggage—and videotape.

The businessman also failed on his own self-professed terms as a superior manager. His convention was the worst since George H.W. Bush ’s in 1992, focusing more on his biography than a message. This left him open to President Obama ’s barrage against his record at Bain Capital, which Mr. Romney failed to defend because that would have meant playing on Democratic turf, as his strategists liked to put it. The unanswered charges suppressed GOP turnout in key states like Ohio.

Mr. Romney’s campaign team was notable for its mediocrities, led by a strategist whose theory of the race was that voters had already rejected Mr. Obama so the challenger merely needed to seem like a safe alternative. He thus never laid out an economic narrative to counter Mr. Obama’s claim that he had saved the country from a GOP Depression and needed more time for his solutions to work.

And don’t forget the management calamity of Mr. Romney’s voter turnout operation, code-named Orca. Mr. Romney likes to say he reveres “data,” but Mr. Obama’s campaign was years ahead of Mr. Romney’s in using Big Data and social media to boost turnout. The Romney campaign was so clueless on voter mobilization that well into Election Night the candidate still thought he would win. He lost a winnable race 51%-47%, including every closely contested state save North Carolina.

Mr. Romney had his good moments, notably choosing Paul Ryan as running mate and the first debate. He also, eventually, adopted solid proposals on tax and Medicare reform after his initial and forgettable 59-point plan. More comfortable with slide decks than ideas, he still struggled to make a compelling argument for the agenda he claimed to favor.

Mr. Romney’s post-election diagnosis also doesn’t inspire confidence that he has learned the right lessons. He said Mr. Obama won because he promised “extraordinary financial gifts” to voters. “It’s a proven political strategy,” Mr. Romney said. “Giving away free stuff is a hard thing to compete with.” Maybe so, but if he can’t sell a larger message of growth and opportunity, he won’t defeat Hillary Clinton ’s gifts either.

The GOP should have a strong chance in 2016, after two Democratic terms of trying to take the country sharply to the left. Democrats are already preparing to run a campaign focused on economic populism and government favors to the middle class. With his instinctive belief that “47%” of America would never vote for him, and his inability to defend his Bain record, Mr. Romney would be the ideal foil for such a campaign.

Republicans are likely to have a far better field in 2016, so voters won’t lack for plausible Presidents. It’s hard to see what advantages Mr. Romney brings that the many potential first-time candidates who have succeeded as governors do not.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/romney-recycled-1421194636

[Sue U]

Romney was nobody's first choice last time around, either. Including at the general election.

[rubato]

I hope Huntsman runs again. It would be nice to have a Republican presidential candidate during my lifetime I can respect.

yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

McCain tried that but riuned it when he decided to "appeal to his base". And then of course was his running mate.

[Gob]

There is absolutely positively no decent (or even minimally politically sane) rationale for Romney running again.

Entertainment for the rest of us!!!

[Sue U]

Not that funny. If you want sheer entertainment value, you gotta go with Louie Gohmert.

[Lord Jim]

Geez, that's the Tea Party moron who ran against Boehner for the Speakership...

Yes, he is a particularly stupid fellow...

[Lord Jim]

There's a school of thought that holds that Romney isn't really serious about getting in, but he's making noises about it just because he was pissed at the way Jeb has dissed his (highly dissable) 2012 campaign...

As for Huckabee...

What will sink his campaign if he starts to get any traction, is that some other contender for the social conservative vote (probably Cruz, but possibly and/or Santorum) will hammer him as a thug hugger:

Mike Huckabee Granted Clemency to Maurice Clemmons

Nine years ago, former Arkansas governor and 2008 GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee commuted the prison sentence of Maurice Clemmons, the man being sought by police in connection with the weekend murder of four police officers in Washington.

Huckabee's decision to commute Clemmons' sentence came "over the protests of prosecutors," according to the Seattle Times, which quotes an Arkansas prosecutor saying, "This is the day I've been dreading for a long time."...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mike-huckab ... -clemmons/

Documents Expose Huckabee's Role In Serial Rapist's Release

Little Rock, Ark -- As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.

Confidential Arkansas state government records, including letters from these women, revealed publicly for the first time, directly contradict the version of events now being put forward by Huckabee.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/0 ... 75362.html

Huckabee, who served as governor of Arkansas from 1996-2007, has a history of supporting pardons and commuting sentences of violent offenders. According to ABC News, Huckabee granted pardons and commutations to approximately 12 convicted murderers.

A study by the Arkansas Leader showed that between 1996 and 2004, Huckabee helped to free more Arkansas prisoners than were freed from all of Arkansas' six neighboring states--combined.

In 2004, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette concluded that "9 percent of the prisoners who benefited from Huckabee's clemencies ended up in prison again."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/2 ... 73119.html

According to a study by the Associated Press, Huckabee issued more than twice as many pardons and commutations in his 10 years in office than his three predecessors did in the previous 17 years.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/01 ... -2009dec01

That kind of record for pardons and commutations may go over big with liberals of the bleeding heart variety, but the last time I checked there weren't a whole lot of them voting in Republican primaries and caucuses...

Particularly the Iowa Caucus, which Huckabee won in 2008 and where he will need to win again (or at least have a very strong finish) to have any hope of capturing the nomination.

[Long Run]

And maybe he is putting himself out there as the safe choice when the more "popular" choices suffer the inevitable implosions and lack of traction. Then, he probably sees a scenario where there is a strong sentiment for going with the guy we know -- he's not great but he's decent.