Mitt Romney hasn’t announced whether or not he’s going to run for reelection. If he won, he’d be 78 when he started his new term. And that’s a big “if.” He already has a difficult primary challenger, state House speaker Brad Wilson, a MAGAt… which Romney is not. And remember, he voted to impeach Trump. His approval rating among Utah voters is 41%, down 11 points since March. 49% of voters say they disapprove of him. It was even worse among Republican voters— 51% of whom disapprove of him.
To MAGAts, Romney is a quintessential RINO… and, worse, a Trump enemy. He doesn’t have to worry about a Democrat. But he does have to worry about a primary. Trump will back anyone who runs against him-- loudly. But yesterday, Romney doubled down in a Wall Street Journal OpEd, urging GOP donors— and that’s his class— not to fund Trump and not to waste money on candidates who can't beat him. His point is that with such a wide field, Trump is a sure thing. He wants to see some of the candidates start dropping out. “For that to happen,” he wrote, “Republican megadonors and influencers— large and small— are going to have to do something they didn’t do in 2016: get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths to the nomination are effectively closed. That decision day should be no later than, say, Feb. 26, the Monday following the contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.”
There are incentives for no-hope candidates to overstay their prospects. Coming in behind first place may grease another run in four years or have market value of its own: Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum got paying gigs. And as former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu has observed, “It is fun running for president if you know you cannot win.
Left to their own inclinations, expect several of the contenders to stay in the race for a long time. They will split the non-Trump vote, giving him the prize. A plurality is all that is needed for winner-take-all primaries.
Candidates themselves used to consolidate the field to achieve what they saw as a greater purpose. In 1968, potential candidates William Scranton, Charles Percy, Mark Hatfield, John Chafee and Nelson Rockefeller rallied around my father, George Romney, instead of seeking nomination themselves, because they believed he had the best shot of stopping Richard Nixon. When my dad’s campaign faltered, he and they swung to Rockefeller to carry their cause forward. They were unsuccessful but not because of blind political ambition or vanity. They put a common cause above personal incentives.
Such narrowing of the field doesn’t happen today. The vast expansion of super PACs gives megadonors oversized influence on campaigns. A few billionaires have already committed tens of millions of dollars. They have a responsibility to give their funds with clear eyes about their candidate’s prospects. Donors who are backing someone with a slim chance of winning should seek a commitment from the candidate to drop out and endorse the person with the best chance of defeating Trump by Feb. 26.
Donors may think that party leaders can narrow the field. Not so. Candidates don’t listen to party officials, because voters don’t listen to them either. And the last people who would ever encourage a candidate to withdraw are the campaign staff and consultants who want to keep their jobs for as long as possible. They buck up candidates, promoting long-shot prospects and favorably biased internal polls. I can almost hear the words from “Dumb and Dumber”— “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
Our party and our country need a nominee with character, driven by something greater than revenge and ego, preferably from the next generation. Family, friends and campaign donors are the only people who can get a lost-cause candidate to exit the race. After Feb. 26, they should start doing just that.
Romney was specifically appealing to GOP billionaires Ken Griffin, Jeffrey Yass, Timothy Mellon (although he’s still pumping millions into Trump’s campaign), Thomas Peterfly, Steve Schwarzman, Miriam Adelson, Nelson Peltz, Richard Uihlein, Larry Ellison, Jim Davis, Shirley Ryan, Harold Hamm, Diane Hendricks, Paul Singer, Jude and Christopher Reyes, Walter Buckley Jr, Charles Schwab, Aryeh Bourkoff, Leonard Stern, Patricia Duggan, Steve Wynn, Robert Bigelow and Bernie Marcus. And all of them read the Wall Street Journal.
So far Doug Burgum loaned his campaign $10 million, $8.1 of which he already spent. Vivek Ramaswarmy loaned his campaign $15.25 million. Who’s going to tell them to bow out? Ramaswarmy absolutely enjoys the attention and notoriety. He's building a brand. And since Trump is shrewdly hinting that he might tap him (and Haley and Scott and RFK Jr… even Francis Suarez) for VP slots, they’ll want to stay in the race, just like Trump hopes they will.
What does it say about Romney that he remains a member of the party of trump?
He SAYS he doesn't much care for trump, but he is all in on winning majorities and power for the party of trump. He would looooove to have more shit all around... but he does not like to smear shit all over himself?
two other factors:
1) they may be hoping trump drops dead along the way. being in the top 3 or 4 will be bigger when der pumpkinfuhrer has his long-overdue massive MI.
2) they also all know that this may be the final election of the republic. after years of bitching about election fraud and illegal voters... the next nazi win will almost surely usher in the reich. absolute power has always been the one and only goal. once they get it, either by election or by coup or a little of both, they won't be risking it on elections anymore. So... being fuhrer or in the reichstag on that date will be the end that justifies the means.
With…