Mitt is out of the 2016 Presidential sweepstakes.

@SoDakCampaigns

From Fox News:

Mitt Romney announced Friday he will not run for president in 2016, after briefly flirting with a third White House run — a decision that only slightly narrows the crowded field of potential Republican candidates.

“After putting considerable thought into making another run for president, I’ve decided it’s best to give other leaders in the party the opportunity to become our next nominee,” Romney told donors on a conference call Friday morning.

Read it here.

28 thoughts on “Mitt is out of the 2016 Presidential sweepstakes.”

  3. There are people who make great candidates but would make at best mediocre Presidents.

    There are those who would make great Presidents but are at best mediocre candidates.

    Romney is the latter. From a pure Executive skill level, he stands alone in this regard in my lifetime. Unfortunately for him, President’s can hire that skill in their Chief of Staff. If he’d take it, Romney should be the top of list for COS, Treasury or OMB.

    Or maybe even “free agent turn-around” ombudsman. For instance, pentagon has a problem with supply chain management, Romney goes in and fixes it. Social Security payment system needs modernization/improved efficiency, Romney goes in and fixes it. HHS has Medicaid fraud issues, Romney goes in and fixes it. They guy has a talent that is top 100 in the nation in these areas.

  4. All you have to do is talk to uninformed voters to figure out the next POTUS is going to be a woman, because “it’s time.” It doesn’t matter who she is.
    However , if Scott Walker suddenly declared he is a drag queen, he’d be a shoo-in

  5. Hillary is not my 1st choice but she will most likely be our next president. 2016 will be interesting though with all the other seats that will be open.

    1. i think the right republican, male or female, can give hillary the mccain treatment next year. as in ‘make her look like the ultimate expression of yesterday’s tired crap.’ reagan isn’t beloved because he was conservative in his actions, it’s because he was positive and offered a big better vision.

      1. After her screeching “WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE!” re: Benghazi and her colossal screwup there, it’s disheartening to know there are enough people out there with the stupidity to put her in office. As long as it’s “historic”, who cares about her ideology of socialism.

        1. ideology of socialism is on both sides. Have you noticed how buddy/buddy Bill and GW are. How many believe it is the job of president to create jobs?

          What we probably will see is a Jeb vs Hillary. Same ideology with different window dressings that we have seen since Reagan. The European rulers of the world will win either way.

        2. Clinton–” With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again”—– Can a conservative answer the question?

            1. What difference at this point does it make? Probing the issue, asking the questions at a later time is a demonstration to the electorate that the government they elected is interested in understanding the event, and maintaining the trust of an awake public instead of sneaking another one past an asleep public.

  7. i saw someone on facebook this morning complaining about how ‘glenn beck says mitt is already throwing all his support to chris christie.’ having dinner tonight is of course not ‘throwing all support behind.’ if beck said that he’s his usual dopey self, about half right.

  8. Chris Christie, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Lyndsey Graham, etc., we don’t need any more damn moderate squishy rinos!

        1. a fool, perhaps, casting pearls before other fools. the central problem of humanity is that we are a demolition crew. our emotion and anger is harnessed to make change happen, but again and again, the energy is spent targeting and destroying rather than being spent in designing and building. as a partisan i am always first and foremost enthusiastic about our party members who can actually get out there and win elections and lead great cities and states. i will always call out the local yahoos who don’t understand the good these office winners have done and simply backstab backstab backstab. yeah, i’m a fool.

          1. i’ll take election winners any day over some local dork who mindlessly regurgitates the enemies-list from yesterday’s glenn beck or mark levin show.

  9. From what I’m reading in Politico, Romney was the latest victim of the Bush’s standard m.o. of power politics. They help a candidate raise money during a race, but keep the data as their own. After that campaign wraps, elder Bush (W this time, GHWB last time) quietly and aggressively goes after the donors and fundraisers (Jeb hired Romney’s last week) of the candidate with the biggest base and raises tons of early dough. They then present the list to the guy and show him how he’s been cut off at the knees.

    Romney found out the past two weeks his money base had been completely co-opted. While he was laying low after the loss, the Bush machine was quietly stealing his financial support. Bush 41 took out Pete Wilson that way in 2000 and then used the mountain of California-raised cash on Bush 43’s notorious South Carolina primary smear campaign that virtually bankrupted McCain, effectively ending the primary early.

    1. Interesting, MHS. That would make Romney’s purely a business decision. I was wondering about that because otherwise, nobody was even coming close to him in the polls. So do you think a Bush nomination is inevitable? Probable?

      1. if that’s true, he’s the probable candidate despite all the shouting and yelling of various splinter factions. thanks mc, well done.

      2. if that’s true, he’s the probable candidate despite all the shouting and yelling of various splinter factions. thanks mhs, well done.

  10. I don’t think it’s ever a pure decision based on money, Bill, but, money is often the deciding factor. The personal sacrifices of running are enormous, whether they’re worth it depends on what chance of winning you think you have. Romney is very, very smart. He learned last time that running for president is something you do every day for your entire life. The Bush’s do it, the Clinton’s do it. If you’re an outsider like him, you need a whole lot of things to come together all at once to make it ever feasible. Miss one and it’s game over.

    He now has two missing ingredients: 1) His last campaign showed he doesn’t have a political savant like a Rove, Carville, Nofziger, etc. He has his trusted team, but, never one of those guys who take it to the next level; and 2) his money is now gone. Fundraising is a finite resource, you have to have the early, easy big money from your long-time base. Everything after gets harder, takes longer and costs more: whether in actual costs or political favors. That’s the math Wilson looked at and he had California’s primary in his back pocket. Romney doesn’t have that big state power base to rely on, probably another factor in his decision.

    I think Romney knows the math better than anyone and is a guy that make decisions rationally. Like Troy said: probably the best qualified to be president , but not the best qualified to win an election.

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