A bit more than two weeks ago I so disbelieved Jon Chait's "I Refuse to Believe Romney ’16 Is Real" that I referred to his post as a "spoof." It was the kindest interpretation I could think of. For what else did Chait think Romney was up to, I asked, in "assembling a staff, calling donors, formulating a strategy and shrieking to all within earshot (and in possession of press connections) that he's by God running a third time"? I concluded, "What does the poor demagogue have to do to convince punditry's wise men that if he's quacking like a duck …"?
In contrast to my magnificently ill-fated certainty, Chait reflected,
Eight years ago, John Kerry briefly considered another run for president, after also having failed to oust an incumbent despised by his own party’s base and mistaking the outpouring of commitment on his behalf as an expression of personal loyalty, rather than the partisan loyalty it actually was. Soon enough, Kerry came to his senses. Romney will, too.
He has to, right? Right?
Right. Or at least "right" seems mostly, indeed almost entirely right. Romney did leave himself a reentry opening — "I’ve been asked … if there are any circumstances whatsoever that might develop that could change my mind. That seems unlikely" — but it's an exceptionally narrow one. The odds of a brokered convention these days are incalculably long, and Romney has to know that. One other possibility, however, is that Romney is waiting to pounce much later in the year, after the GOP wannabe Gang of Dozens has pulverized each other and so fractured the party that Romney the Eleventh-Hour Savior "seems" more likely.
But all that is wild speculation. For now, anyway, Romney has rendered himself a non-entity — which, contrary to Chait's perceptiveness, I still maintain makes absolutely no sense. As his statement today made clear, he still believes he's the best man for the Oval Office (but what political ego doesn't?), he still believes he could have won the nomination, he still believes he could have beaten Hillary, and with his leaving the door open, he's still proving that the presidential bug never dies. He's also been leading the GOP pack in poll after poll. In sum, he had as many reasons to go on to lose the 2016 general election as he possessed in 2012.
But, notwithstanding what I continue to see as the illogic of Romney's decision today, Chait was right, and I was wrong.