After some initial dilly dallying with the idea of running for arguably the most powerful position on earth in 2016, Mitt Romney announced yesterday that he is no more in the race and wisely so. Power is a powerful aphrodisiac. Arguably nobody is more more powerful than the President of United States. The POTUS can unilaterally declare a war for 60 days and use his executive power to veto legislation passed by the House and Senate. It seemed Romney who was so near yet so far in getting the coveted post in 2012 was obsessed with it and thought worth giving it a shot.
No one in the history of United States has made a back to back run for the highest office of the land. And only person who ever won the Presidency after a defeat as a nominated candidate was Richard Nixon who after his defeat to JFK in 1960, came back to win in 1968 (I doubt it would have happened but for the tragic assassination of Bobby Kennedy, the charismatic younger Kennedy brother).
Romney would have been the second person after Ronald Reagan to run for the office of the Presidency for the third time. But unlike the loquacious former actor it would not have been mission difficult, but mission impossible for him. Last time he failed to defeat a vulnerable Barack Obama who was presiding over an unstable economy. He failed to tell a good life story unlike the charismatic Obama and Bill Clinton who could do the same to connect to a broader audience. Now I doubt, with lower gas price and an economy in upswing he would have succeed if ( a big if) he ever got nominated. Glad realism descended upon him at the right time. RIP (politically) Mitt Romney.
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