Back To The Future: Mitt Romney In 2016?

The Republican Party is so torn apart that now there are rumors and hints that 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, is reconsidering his decision not to run again, due to the collapse of the so called “Establishment” Republicans, led by former Governor Jeb Bush.

Bush has run a poor campaign, despite all of the money he has gathered, and there are indications that he is starting to be abandoned, as Donald Trump continues to take up all of the oxygen in the Republican race.

While Ohio Governor John Kaisch has made some progress in his campaign, he is far from being seen as anywhere near becoming a leader in the competition for the Presidency, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio has not impressed many in his quest for the nomination.

So Romney may decide to enter the race, but still with the same shortcomings and faults that caused his defeat by President Barack Obama in 2012.

To believe that Romney could, somehow, win the Presidency in 2016 is mostly hype and delusion.

The question arises:  How many times has a defeated Presidential candidate come back to win the Presidency?  Here are the facts, a total of 5 times:

Thomas Jefferson lost the Presidency in 1796 and won in 1800.

Andrew Jackson lost the Presidency in 1824 and won in 1828.

William Henry Harrison lost the Presidency in 1836 and won in 1840.

Grover Cleveland lost the Presidency in 1888 and won in 1892.

Richard Nixon lost the Presidency in 1960 and won in 1968.

That is it, five Presidents, but realize that Jackson and Cleveland actually won the popular vote in their losing races in 1824 and 1888, but lost the electoral vote, and Cleveland had been President, then lost, and then won.

Of course, there have been 4 times when a future President lost the nomination of his party, and then went on to win the Presidency later, including:

James Monroe lost the nomination in 1808 to James Madison, but then won the Presidency in 1816.

Lyndon B. Johnson lost the nomination in 1960 to John F. Kennedy, but then became President by succession in 1963.

Ronald Reagan lost the nomination in 1976 to Gerald Ford, but then won the Presidency in 1980.

George H. W. Bush lost the nomination in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, but then won the Presidency in 1988.

At the same time, there have been 5 candidates nominated multiple times and never winning the Presidency, as follows:

Charles C. Pinckney won the nomination in 1804 and 1808.

Henry Clay won the nomination in 1824, 1832, and 1844.

William Jennings Bryan won the nomination in 1896, 1900, and 1908.

Thomas E. Dewey won the nomination in 1944 and 1948.

Adlai E. Stevenson II won the nomination in 1952 and 1956.

Also being on the ballot for President multiple times were Socialist Party nominees Eugene V. Debs (1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1920) and Norman Thomas (1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948) and Ross Perot (Independent in 1992 and Reform Party in 1996).

In any case, the odds that Romney, if he ran for President, would become the Republican nominee and win the Presidency are very poor!

 

 

 

3 comments on “Back To The Future: Mitt Romney In 2016?

  1. Ariel Leis September 2, 2015 10:44 am

    Any candidate of any party must first be able to mobilize the base of their party in order to have any chance of winning the general election. Romney, just like McCain, Bush W (who actually didn’t win the popular vote so I would add him too ) Dole and Ford has not been able to do that, and probably won’t be able to this time around.

  2. D September 4, 2015 7:27 pm

    There is even less point to dusting off and potentially running, once again, Mitt Romney than there was in actually nominating, from 2012, Mitt Romney for president of the United States.

    He belongs in the corporate world—doing his best to further enrich the filthy rich while deliberately destroying companies off the backs of the have-nots.

    The only Romney who was ever office-worthy was 43rd Michigan Governor George Romney. Back in the 1990s, Mitt’s sister-in-law, Ronna, was the 1996 Republican U.S. Senate nominee. (Ronna’s sister is Terry Rakolta. Remember her? She was the one who took her parental offense of Fox’s “Married…with Children” nationwide.) And Ronna failed miserably at trying to unseat incumbent Democrat Carl Levin, in the year Democratic U.S. President Bill Clinton won re-election nationally by 8.52 percentage points and carried Michigan by 13.21 points. Levin defeated Ronna by 19.49 percentage points.

    So, over the last ten years, and after Mitt Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 (proof that that state’s voting electorate is overrated), it has been the mere act of running for the presidency which has been, for Mitt Romney, a notable career move. It’s been an adventure. He is not actually compelled to serve the best interests of The People. The ones who believed that Mitt Romney would’ve been a really good U.S. president are the professional careerists from the political establishment of Washington, D.C. The Republican primary voters who nominated Mitt Romney, in 2012, just wanted any Republican to be in the White House. And this pretty much sums up what the reality would be in, once again, dusting off Mitt Romney and running him for president of the United States in 2016.

  3. Ronald September 4, 2015 7:41 pm

    D, I completely agree with you, as I have stated on here during the 2012 campaign, that Mitt Romney is one of the absolutely worst GOP nominees in history, a total charlatan, phony, only concerned about his own advancement, and having no concern for the average American of any background!

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