Group of Conservatives Forms Against Romney Candidacy

While more and more politicos are coming to see victory by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as an inevitability, one group of conservatives doesn’t view it that way, The Hill reports.

Members of the group are resisting the candidacy of the former Massachusetts governor, starting a website NotMittRomney.com this week.

Conservative activist and group spokesman Ali Akbar said the group is open to the possibility of turning into a political action committee, but is happy now to serve as an online community for conservatives opposed to Romney.

Joining Akbar’s efforts are well-known conservative bloggers John Hawkins and Atlas Shrugs’ Pamela Geller and activists working for Romney’s opponents in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Akbar takes issue with the argument that Romney is the GOP’s best hope against President Barack Obama. “While conservatives are just as worried about putting up a viable candidate, we are more worried with the Electoral College than Romney supporters who are quick to cite national polls that he is now losing. We fundamentally want to win,” Akbar said in a statement.

The group’s hopes sound a bit far-fetched. “We’re treading water until this viable candidate presents him- or herself,” Akbar told The Hill. He suggested that will happen after Florida’s Jan. 31 primary. But Romney may control the race by then.

The NotMittRomney group doesn’t seek to merge all the anti-Romney forces together but rather to help them communicate with each other. It is focusing its initial effort on Iowa. It has quietly started raising money but hasn’t yet met the threshold to file with the Federal Election Commission as a political action committee. “This is about building a coalition first,” Akbar said.

The group’s website has a petition for readers to sign stating that “Mitt Romney should not be our nominee." Akbar declined to specify the number of signers, but says it exceeds the group’s expectations.

Two of the signers are conservative PACs already working against Romney: Western Representation PAC and The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama.