Mark Halperin's early-morning Bloomberg piece reports that later this morning Mitt Romney will hold an "update" conference call with major supporters, now that he's "gathered all the information he needs to reach a conclusion about whether to run a third time." Yes, "the data is in," and Mitt must weigh his vast awesomeness, which, in the data, is threefold, against any mitigating factors, which are twofold. So that's the scuttlebutt, although with the pros outweighing the cons — rather unremarkably, wouldn't you say? — Mitt's "update" seems predetermined.
Romney awesomeness factor #2 is of singular interest — awesomeness factor #1, by the way, is that no one could be a better president; awesomeness factor #3 is that no one could be a better nominee — assuming the books haven't been cooked:
Romney … has been briefed on what one Republican source describes as a massive, rolling private polling project recently conducted by a wealthy GOP contributor who shelled out his own money to determine which Republican has the best chance of winning the nomination. The data, collected over an extended period of time in the first twenty states scheduled to hold caucuses and primaries in 2016, shows Romney with a huge lead across the board, and significantly better favorable/unfavorable ratings than the rest of the large potential field.
This polling would be easy to dismiss if its conclusion were an outlier. But its conclusion isn't an outlier; its in near perfect accord with a stream of public polling over the last several months, all of which has shown Romney with double-digit leads over his internal competitors. The latest poll comes from Fox News — I know, the natural tendency is to laugh, but Fox polled the 2012 race with rather impressive objectivity — and it shows Romney leading Jeb Bush by 11 points, and both Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul by 10.
The Fox poll is somewhat suspicious in that it also shows Romney beating Huckabee among white evangelical Christians by 2 points, although the fracturing of the evangelical vote — Huckabee must share it with Santorum, Cruz, Perry et al — could explain that seeming anomaly. More suspicious is that "In hypothetical matchups for a 2016 presidential contest, Romney ties Clinton at 46 percent each." Now that's an outlier.
Those two mitigating factors in Romney's technocratic decision to run? They're more like one-point-five. First, presidential campaigns are punishing crucibles, as Mitt well knows. I'll grant him that one, in full. The second factor in the "data," however, I can already hear Mitt attempting to turn to his advantage on primary stumps: Hillary's path to the nomination is hitherto an uncluttered one, which frees up her general-election cash, while Mitt must battle what he'll portray as a hopeless horde in competitive pursuit of the nomination. His obvious selling point to the primary masses: Go with electability (see Fox poll, accurate or not).