I suppose you could call it this week’s comic relief: a trial balloon for Mitt Romney for president in 2024.
The headline was, believe it or not, “Romney 2024 – the third time’s a charm?”
This sad fantasy appeared in Willard’s most recent home state, Utah, in something called the Deseret News, which used to be a daily print newspaper and now comes out every once in a while (probably even less this after this piece).
It’s owned by the Mormon Church, which may be something of an explanation. It appears the LDS treats him with pretty much the same reverence that the Boston Globe used to reserve for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Chappaquiddick, and still does for basically all Democrats.
“There is one candidate,” the story informs us, “who would almost certainly attract independent, moderate and even Democratic voters – perhaps enough of them to win something approaching a landslide, if current conditions hold …”
“I am talking, of course, about Mitt Romney.”
Surely, he meant to say Pierre Delecto.
The piece was written by someone named Robby Soave, who is from another of Mitt’s home states, Michigan. He now lives in Washington, D.C. — in other words, he’s a snowflake.
You can imagine how this went over in Republican (as opposed to Romney or RINO) circles.
Someone on a message board mentioned the trial-balloon nature of the piece, and then asked: “Where’s my slingshot now that I really need one.”
Even Soave had to mention the obvious about Mitt “Landslide” Romney.
“The hardcore MAGA crowd considers him a traitor to Trump … He is the only Republican senator who voted to convict the president in both impeachment trials. This would be a massive liability in the Republican primaries, of course, but it’s a huge asset in a general election.”
Actually, no, it wouldn’t be. The Democrat operatives with press passes love to swoon over a “moderate” Republican in the primaries, then turn on him like rabid hyenas when their dream candidate (which is any Democrat) is nominated.
Thus, John McCain’s campaign bus went from being known during the 2008 primaries as “the Straight Talk Express” to the “Straitjacket Express” in the fall.
During the national GOP convention in Tampa in 2012, the year Mitt won the Republican nomination, one morning the New York Times had not one but two columns on the op-ed page denouncing Willard’s treatment of his Irish setter, Seamus, whom he once transported from Boston to Michigan in a cage on the roof of his car.
Remember that Mitt was running against a guy, Barack Obama, who had in fact eaten dogs as a youth in Indonesia. Barry had even written about it, early on in one of his several best-selling autobiographies.
Despite the tome’s great sales and fawning reviews, though, none of Barack’s acolytes apparently ever bothered to read it, because when some writer finally mentioned in passing his
taste for canines, that scribe was immediately denounced as a racist.
It was like when John Kerry once compared something to a “tar baby.” Nothing to see here, folks, move along. When Mitt used the same phrase, it was a national scandal — racist! Racist!
Some Republicans can handle this kind of appalling double standard with aplomb — Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis come immediately to mind.
Mittens — forget about it.
He’s like the political version of a battered wife. He keeps coming back for more. He really thinks the Beltway hacks like him when they invite him on their Sunday chat shows that nobody watches anymore. His hagiographer swallows the same BS hook, line and sinker.
“The years of goodwill Romney has earned would be his advantage.”
How can anyone seriously believe such nonsense? The Democrats adore Willard (or Pierre, or Mittens, or whatever you want to call him) because he’s like that loser kid in middle school — the bullies can give him a wedgie, stomp on his lunch bag and stuff him into his locker … and he’ll come crawling back for more.
Forget stabbing Trump in the back, twice. No sane Republican or independent would ever vote for Mitt in a primary simply because they have observed, close up, how incapable he is of fighting back against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Even the slobbering wet kiss in his own personal religious tract had to acknowledge the obvious.
“He’s more liked by Democrats than he is by Republicans.”
Kinda like his successor in Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker. And Tall Deval is retiring due to ill health — the voters got sick of him.
Even in Utah, I seem to recall a recent GOP state convention where Sen. Delecto was roundly booed by delegates who are customarily polite even to those whom they disagree with.
Not that the Deseret News hasn’t been trying to mend Mitt’s fences back home for him, even before this. The stories linked to this bit of malarkey that I’ve been quoting likewise give off a positively Globe-ian whiff of bum-kissing:
“Are Republicans showing Mitt Romney more love? New Utah poll has the answers.”
It’s just a variation on the every-sixth-year story about Fat Boy in the Globe back in the day:
“Ted friends say solon is turning his life around.”
Well, the piece was at least good for a chuckle. Why should the Babylon Bee have all the fun printing laughable nonsense?
But in the end, when most voters think of Mitt Romney, they come back to the words of that old country song:
“How can we miss him when he won’t go away?”