Posted on 01/30/2015 7:02:35 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In the race for the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination, there can be only one… establishment candidate.
When the news broke late Thursday night that David Kochel, a once loyal Mitt Romney aide who managed the former Massachusetts governor’s Iowa campaigns in 2008 and 2012, had jumped ship and joined former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s camp, it went off like a bomb.
The hire signaled to many that Romney’s campaign-in-waiting was floundering and that it was acceptable for donors and former staffers alike to abandon the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. What’s more, by hiring the architect of Romney’s virtual tie in the 2012 Iowa caucuses, it indicated that Bush planned to compete for every Republican delegate available to him. In short: Bush was serious, and Romney was not.
That wisdom was confirmed on Friday when Mitt Romney revealed that he would decline to mount a third presidential campaign. Romney’s decision has also set off a frantic scramble among establishment-friendly GOP operatives to unite behind the two remaining Beltway favorites who likely remain the race: Bush or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
“Early word of Mr. Romney’s decision sent waves through the Republican donor world early Friday, as Romney aides began to telegraph the news to donors and other staff members and strategists,” The New York Times reported on Friday. “Some donors immediately began calling representatives of other potential candidates, such as Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, to discuss offering their support.”
It should come as no surprise given the unveiled acrimony between Bush and Romney that the former Massachusetts governor seems to be contemplating putting his weight behind Christie:
Mr. Romney’s announcement will mark the beginning of a day of reckoning with his would-be rivals. He is scheduled to have dinner with Mr. Christie on Friday evening, according to two people with knowledge of his schedule, suggesting that Mr. Romney may be considering throwing his support, and that of his own political operation, to Mr. Christie. The two men are friendly — and Mr. Christie, along with former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, was a main rival of Mr. Romney for the favor of the Republican establishment.
If that is true, it is a significant development. Many have interpreted Romney’s statement about leaving the 2016 nomination to “our next generation of Republican leaders” as a veiled swipe at Bush who has not run for public office since 1998. According to a report via Mark Halperin, though, Romney’s team thoroughly vetted Christie in 2012 amid a search for a running mate and didn’t like what they found.
Romney and Christie became friends in the last cycle, but Romney nevertheless has dismissed his pal as a non-factor. Thanks to the 2012 veep vetting process, Romney is intimately familiar with some of the less publicized controversies from the New Jersey governor’s past, and believes that several of those flaps would mushroom so broadly that Christie soon would be eliminated from consideration by voters and donors.
Of course, Halperin also joined The Daily Beast in claiming that all signs indicated that Romney was going to pull the trigger on a 2016 run, so it might be worth taking this revelation with a grain of salt.
What is clear is that it’s too soon to say whether Romney plans to back Christie outright – a development that would give him access to an established national team of competent campaign operatives and donors – or if he simply plans to back the governor in a less visible fashion. In fact, Romney may determine that it is in his best interests, and perhaps those of the Republican Party, to remain neutral in the contest between these two establishment colossi.
On the other hand, perhaps Romney is only meeting with Christie in order to convince him to follow in his footsteps and clear the field for another governor who, unlike the Garden State executive, enjoys the support of the Republican grassroots: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Romney was always going to support a fellow member of the governor’s club in 2016 – if it wasn’t him, it would be another member of this exclusive set. Between Christie and Walker, it seems today as though the latter is more likely to emerge from the early state primaries in a competitive position.
It is virtually unthinkable at this stage of the race, however, to imagine that Romney and Bush would bury the hatchet.
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I don’t think anyone is giving up...(well maybe a few)
I think it’s just major disappointment in past elections and the utter failure of the party when it was given all three branches.
Call it a conditioned response.
Good. I hope they both split the RINO vote, and everyone needs to rally around either Ted Cruz or Scott Walker.
I have vowed to raise $2 million dollars for his campaign. If I can do so in my current circumstances, what could a younger person with energy and vitality do and if so, what could a few million such people do?
Well....that is a laudable goal.
I have never got myself too deep into fundraising. I was not a very sociable fellow when I was younger, and now I am a unsociable curmudgeon.
Hope you meet and exceed your goal! It’s the basis of the democratic process and I assume you are talking about Cruz.
I like him..and if he is the nominee he will get my vote.
After the way they attack/ed Sarah Palin, yeah.
I’m hoping they exhaust themselves, and when the ‘winner’ is barely keeping his head above water ....
then we’ll toss him a boat anchor.
Me, either. But somehow, I raised $40,000 for Fred in that short window he was in.
I had nearly forgotten that time period..He did have a lot of support here on FR..I thought he was a decent Senator and did a fine job with his committee from what I saw of various hearings. But I never gave him much chance of winning a national election and did not think he was strong enough to last through a rigorous campaign. All that aside, he was the best of the also ran’
s in my opinion.
These things are all important aspects of a candidate. The 2016 run is only in it’s infancy. There is going to be many candidates and many tests for them. If fact it will be the best slate we have probably ever put up and they are all young and vigorous.
The 2012 and 2008 slates sucked by comparison.
But there is a underlying issue with the Conservatives here on FR and elsewhere that the GOP will have to deal with at some point, or they may well lose again, only with bigger loss percentages if they continue to refuse to acknowledge us or the fiscal conservative tea party and the religious right. Together we can sink their boat perhaps permanently.
Most of us will not just vote for the nominee no matter who it is this time.
I do hope they get the message. I do hope they do...
No. This is RINOs in a circular firing squad,. Didn’t Romney torpedo McCain with some dirty tricks back in 2000? Let them trash each other, then a conservative candidate, above it all, can emerge.
No. This is RINOs in a circular firing squad,. Didn’t Romney torpedo McCain with some dirty tricks back in 2000? Let them trash each other, then a conservative candidate, above it all, can emerge.
Actually it was the other way around.
now that Mitt is out,
We ALL have to ban together to dump Jeb.
Looks like we’ll have to wait to find out the ramifications of Mitt staying out of the race - first he’s got a deal to help Bush, now he’s doing it to help Christie. Next thing it will be to atone with the SPCA for putting his dog on top of the car.
Yeh Crispy is such a great Mitt supporter he almost forgot to mention Mitt in the 2012 Republican keynote speech. LOL!
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