Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s unsuccessful presidential nominee in 2012, leads the field for the 2016 election among Republican voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.
The former Massachusetts governor would have a slight edge over potential Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by 45 percent to 44 percent in a general election, the poll found.
Among possible Republican candidates, Romney’s 19 percent put him ahead of former Florida governor Jeb Bush with 11 percent, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Ben Carson each with 8 percent each, and U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky with 6 percent.
I have no doubt that this is an accurate reflection of the preferences of the fourteen octogenarians who still have land lines and are so lonely they answer them. I’m in communication with politically involved Republicans every day, however, and I haven’t met one person who is salivating for a Romney reboot.
That’s probably because it’s the worst idea ever.
Her Madameship will spend plenty of time distancing herself from President Obama, as will the eventual Democratic nominee, Elizabeth Warren. That means the “Romney was right, Obama was wrong” mantra that fuels what speculation there is about him has a shelf life. By July of 2016, Obama’s support network will consist of Michelle, Sasha, Malia and six MSNBC interns. In the short attention span politics era, the one thing Romney has going for him won’t be going that strong. As we found out in 2012, he won’t be making the case for himself well.
After all, he may have been right about everything, but he was right back then too and couldn’t manage to communicate that to the voters. He hasn’t been getting any campaign practice since then so he’s still an awful candidate.
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