Mitt Romney has already tried to become president twice. He failed with his spectacular proposals. Now he wants to try it again.
Those declared dead sometimes come back to life — and those who pronounce themselves dead apparently can live even longer. That’s apparently the case with Republican Mitt Romney: He just told 30 well-heeled American supporters that he was considering another run for the presidency in 2016 — as in, first winning the Republican nomination, then going on to take the White House.
And just to ensure there was no doubt about the seriousness of his intentions, he exhorted his audience to carry that message throughout the land. He also said that his wife Ann, after some initial hesitation, also supported his decision. Only his five sons are divided on another try.
Looking back, we see that the former Massachusetts governor lost the Republican primary election to John McCain in 2008. After that defeat, he let his party know that he had no further ambitions regarding the Oval Office. Nevertheless, four years later he made another attempt, supposedly at the urging of his wife and family. That time he was at least successful in gaining his party’s nomination after a bitterly contested primary election. That, however, ended in a crushing loss to Barack Obama in the general election.
One Year Ago, Romney Denied Any Presidential Ambitions
After that second ignominious defeat he went into seclusion and announced that he would not run for the White House again. Just a year ago in a New York Times interview, when asked if he might consider another run he replied, “Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no.” No times 11; it doesn’t get much clearer than that.
But who cares what I may have said yesterday!? This is Romney’s philosophy of life and the guiding light for his political career. As governor, he gave Massachusetts a mandatory universal health insurance program that was virtually a mirror image of the one Barack Obama introduced nationally. That never stopped Romney from saying Obamacare was socialism that would doom the free-enterprise system in the United States.
While Romney governed Massachusetts, he was considered a moderate liberal. He would not have been elected in that state were he anything else. But when he ran against John McCain in the 2008 primaries, he moved sharply to the right for tactical reasons. In 2012, he waffled between those two extremes.
Romney’s Unforgettable Proposals
His proposal that illegal aliens in the United States should “self-deport” is difficult to forget since it brought ridicule down on him from all sides. Because of that, Jeb Bush, who is also seriously considering running for president as a Republican, withheld his support from Romney for a long time in the 2012 primaries. There has been bad blood between them ever since,
Romney’s Manhattan guests also proudly announced that a central theme of Romney’s candidacy would be poverty. He wants to eliminate the stark divide between those who earn obscene amounts and those who have to work three jobs and still find it hard to make ends meet.
Once again, we rub our eyes in disbelief and ask ourselves which of the many different Mitt Romneys we’ll get this time around. In the last election he played the cool entrepreneur who believed that everyone was master of his own financial success, and someone who apparently had little sympathy for those who couldn’t participate in the American economic dream. Back then, he believed that 47 percent of Americans would blindly vote for Obama because they were dependent on government handouts and saw themselves as victims who had an absolute right to government health care and social support.
Republicans Tolerated Romney
That attitude cost Romney a lot of sympathy and support in 2012 and branded him — somewhat unjustly and totally over the top — as an ice cold, calculating machine. In actuality, he’s far more compassionate and sensitive than his enemies will admit. His main problem is his rigidity and his leaden, uninspiring rhetoric, along with his propensity for clumsiness.
And now he really wants to go through all this a third time? He can’t have forgotten how often his own clumsiness damaged him in the past. He has to know that the right wing of the Republican Party doesn’t really like him but rather clenches its teeth and merely tolerates him because they were unable to come up with anyone better to raise on their shields.
Nothing at all has changed since last time. He wants to take 60 days to make a final decision about his candidacy. For his own good: He should not try running a third time.
As a U.S. citizen and a registered voter, I commend the writer of this article for his astute insight on presidential politics here. Even though I am a democratic Socialist, I must say that no American journalist surpasses that deceptively ” conservative ” curmudgeon, Baltimore sage H.L. Mencken, in describing the hollow souls of successful American politicians. Just the other night I read his scathing assessment of President Woodrow Wilson: ” Archangel Wilson “. Wilson’s hollow rhetoric got us into the Great War- ” the war to end all wars…. the war to make the world safe for democracy “.
And no socialist writer wrote with more bone-deep contempt for our own American plutocracy than H.L. Mencken. They had money and nothing else , he thought. He believed in a ” natural aristocracy “. But don’t look for it here !
http://radicalrons.blogspot.com/
Perceptive article. I only disagree with the last sentence. I live in Massachusetts and so I saw Mr. Romney as an excellent governor, although I did not vote for him for President. But he can run all he wants to and the race will be better for his inclusion. America is the land of infinite second chances.