Mitt Romney seemed down for the count following his defeat for the presidency in 2012. However, his name keeps popping up as a possible 2016 GOP candidate from various pundits.
1. Romney has proven his worth as a potential GOP presidential nominee in the two years since his loss to Obama,
according to Julian Zelizer, a CNN contributor and professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.
Zelizer pointed to Richard Nixon, who was defeated in the 1960 presidential race and then lost a bid for governor of California in 1962. Nixon played a key role in the 1966 midterm elections just as Romney did in 2014 fundraising events. Nixon went on to win the 1968 presidential election. Romney has suffered defeats in the 2008 Republican primary and the 2012 election, but he has impeccable credentials in economics that appeal to big donors and conservatives, Zelizer wrote.
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2. Byron York called Romney a “real possibility” for the 2016 race in his column for the
Washington Examiner. Romney has been playing close attention to Republicans mentioned as possible GOP candidates and has been consulting with advisors, York wrote. Some of these advisors worked with him in the 2012 campaign and have remained in contact.
When telling a radio talk show host he wasn’t interested in running in 2016, Romney also added, “circumstances can change.” While Romney mentioned his political career might be over following the 2012 defeat in the documentary “Mitt,” York noted: “That was then. This is now. And perhaps Romney is no longer quite as sure that it’s really over.”
3. Steve Huntley of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that recent events have proven Romney had been right in 2012 on critical issues where Obama was wrong. Romney had warned about an abrupt withdrawal of troops from Iraq, which has now helped lead to the chaos that includes the Islamic State overrunning the country.
Romney had also foreseen problems with the Veterans Administration by proposing in 2011 vouchers for veterans to obtain medical care not always available in VA hospitals, Huntley wrote. This was before the VA scandal erupted and mistreatment of vets was widely reported.
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4. Romney was also right about the troubles the U.S. would face from Vladimir Putin’s Russia,
Aaron Blake wrote in The Washington Post. Obama denounced his claims in the presidential race.
More Americans now see Russia as an adversary, Blake pointed out, adding, “for a guy whose presidential campaign won’t be fondly remembered, he’s got the whole Russia thing going for him.”
5. “So — as it turns out — Mitt Romney was right,”
wrote Adrian Bonenberger in Forbes. “We all laughed at him — I sure did — for claiming that Russia was our greatest enemy.”
Bonenberger was an infantry officer in the U.S. Army from 2005 to 2012, serving in Afghanistan, but admits following his hardened experience in Afghanistan he felt Romney “was stuck in the cold war” — until he was able to look at the global situation more clearly.
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