Is Barack Obama Running for President Again

The year 2022 is shaping up to be a good yr for the balloter prospects of the loyal opposition. Ii years afterward losing the presidency — and then watching helplessly equally Donald Trump'due south petulance poisoned the Republican endeavour to win in Georgia and keep control of the Senate — the GOP is suddenly poised for a comeback in Congress.

Inflation and rising gas prices, frustration with liberal political leaders who clung to COVID-nineteen restrictions well past their expiration date, and concerns about how the administration is handling the twin threats of Russia and Mainland china (to say null of the U.S.'southward bungled exit from Afghanistan), accept all caused Joe Biden'south poll numbers to collapse.

Biden began his presidency with a 53% approving rating, co-ordinate to FiveThirtyEight; he's at present at 42%, even later a post State of the Marriage bump. If this situation endures until November, Republicans should easily retake the Business firm and possibly the Senate as well.

At that point, all eyes will plough to the 2024 presidential election, in which the Republicans volition exist well-positioned to brand Biden a i-term president. Swapping out Biden for another Democrat — something oft-proposed by hands excitable pundits — is a nonstarter; to heighten simply i objection, his most likely successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, is even more unpopular.

Virtually whatsoever political figure with an R adjacent to his or her proper name will look like the favorite, with the possible exception of Trump, who inspires rabid loyalty among a contingent of the Republican base while actively scaring off the suburban swing voters needed to take back the White House.

But while Trump would be 1 of just a few Republicans who might actually struggle to vanquish Biden in a theoretical matchup, there are certainly ways for the GOP to improve its odds, beyond just not nominating Trump. Indeed, there is 1 candidate who would most certainly attract independent, moderate and fifty-fifty Autonomous voters — perhaps plenty of them to win something approaching a landslide, if current weather hold.

Equally a plus, he'due south no novice: In fact, he's already run for president.

I am talking, of course, well-nigh Mitt Romney.

And so-Republican presidential candidate and one-time Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney poses with children wearing shirts which spell out "Romney" as he campaigns at the Iowa Events Center, in Des Moines, Sunday, November. 4, 2012.

Charles Dharapak, Associated Press

The current inferior senator from Utah, former governor of Massachusetts and 2012 GOP presidential candidate is less loved past some Republicans than he was a decade agone because the hardcore MAGA oversupply considers him a traitor to Trump. But among not­-Republicans, his star has never shone brighter. He has burnished his credibility as an contained-minded politician who is non afraid to challenge Trump: He is the just Republican senator who voted to captive the president in both impeachment trials.

This would be a massive liability in the Republican primaries, of course, simply it's a huge nugget in a general election.

Romney's foreign policy credentials would also play well in the current moment, especially since Russian federation's aggression will undoubtedly remain an important entrada effect. It was Romney, after all, who named Russia the U.S.'s No. 1 geopolitical foe during a argue with President Barack Obama. That claim prompted derision from Obama, who said, "The 1980s are calling to ask for their strange policy back … the Common cold War has been over for 20 years."

That jape has not aged well. Just Romney has.

At 74, he's currently v years younger than Biden; in terms of his comparative energy level, he could be two decades younger than Biden. If his speeches and media appearances are any indication, Romney has lost fiddling of his eloquence; his Jan. six, 2021 speech post-obit the assault on the U.S. Capitol — in which he lamented "a selfish man's injured pride, and the outrage of supporters whom he has deliberately misinformed and stirred to activity'' — nevertheless resonates more than a year afterward.

It'southward true that Romney paid a political price for breaking then decisively with Trump. Only it has besides made Romney ane of the most independent minded political effigy in the land's history. It bears repeating that this independent streak would practise him no favors in the Republican primaries. The MAGA faction demands zip short of perfect loyalty to Trump. But many persuadable voters outside the Trump bubble will appreciate that Romney is a man of convictions who was willing to condemn and punish Trump's behavior.

Democrats practise not view Romney with the same human knee-jerk fright and scorn that they feel for other Republicans. Among Democrats in Utah, Romney has an approval rating of threescore%. He's improve liked past Democrats than he is by Republicans.

In this Oct. 3, 2012 file photo, Republican presidential candidate one-time Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama talk after the kickoff presidential debate at the Academy of Denver in Denver.

Charlie Neibergall, Associated Press

The relentlessly tribal, biting, 2-sided nature of modern American politics means that the entrada would plummet some of these distinctions: Somewhen, the media would attack Romney but every bit viciously every bit if he were Trump, and his approval among Democrats would autumn. The other side of that coin is that many Republicans would conveniently forget his "Never Trump" heresies.

The primal reward for Romney, however, is that the media wouldn't be so quick on the depict: The years of goodwill Romney has earned would be his advantage.

In fact, a prospective Romney entrada would benefit from having withstood withering, frequently misguided media criticism during the 2012 bike. Reflecting on his own misguided treatment of "honorable" Republicans like Romney, the liberal commentator Pecker Maher once said, "We cried wolf. And that was incorrect."

"The key advantage for Romney, even so, is that the media wouldn't exist so quick on the draw: The years of goodwill Romney has earned would be his advantage."

Who tin can recall Romney's infamous "gaffe" that he was so excited to include women in his government that he possessed, quote, "binders full of women"? The media took Romney's slightly bad-mannered phrasing and used it to argue that the remark somehow proved he was toxic to female voters. "The comment shows how out-of-impact Mitt is with women," wrote The Daily Beast's Marlow Stern.

Never heed that Romney did actually possess said binders, which were recovered and delivered to The Boston Globe years afterwards: That the media fabricated a mountain out of this detail molehill reflects much more than poorly on them than on Romney. By the standards of recent political soapbox, the binders comment wouldn't even register on the outrage calibration. The Romney campaign should resuscitate the binders moment on purpose, to shame the media when they come subsequently him.

Think when they said this about me? Voters would scroll their eyes right forth with him.

The same would be true of the Russia line. In fact, diverse facets of the mainstream media have already begun conceding that they were incorrect to spring on Romney for daring to proper name Putin every bit a bigger global threat than al-Qaida. "It's time to admit it: Mitt Romney was right about Russia," wrote CNN's Chris Cilizza in a recent commodity. "Romney Was Right All Forth, Democrats Acknowledge," observed The Telegraph. "Romney was Correct About Putin," said The Atlantic'southward McKay Coppins.

In his interview with Coppins for The Atlantic piece, Romney showed feature magnanimity to his old foes, spiking the football game simply slightly — a rarity in today'due south politics. "I'm pleased that more than people recognize how keen the peril is of an emboldened Russia," he said. "Merely I don't think that, by any means, I was the merely person who saw Russian federation'southward intent."

Romney also made clear that while Russia was a serious threat as far back every bit the early 2010s, today the U.S. has an even greater geopolitical threat: Communist china.

"Conspicuously, today, Prc is a greater threat to our security and our economic vitality," he said, and rightly so.

While his demeanor could non be more different from the ex-president's, Romney is still a conservative Republican with a bourgeois voting record. He will advance a Republican calendar, only he will do so free of the considerable baggage that weighs down Trump. He will as well work across the alley — something desperately missing in Washington.

Unfortunately, Trump seems probable to run for president once more. Afterwards the madness of Jan. 6, the GOP had one take a chance to rid themselves of Trump forever — impeachment and removal — and if more Republicans had possessed the backbone to follow Romney's lead, the one man who could ensure Biden's reelection would take been prohibited from making another go of it.

Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, with married woman Ann holding the Bible, is sworn into part by Vice President Mike Pence in the Old Senate Bedroom in the U.South. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 3, 2019.

Cheryl Diaz Meyer, for the Deseret News

Instead, political party leadership failed to human action, and at present Trump is once over again the political party'southward de facto leader.

"We did it twice, and nosotros'll do it again," Trump said at the Conservative Political Activity Conference in Orlando, Florida, terminal month, suggesting that he had really won in 2020. "We're going to be doing information technology again a 3rd time."

Defeating Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries will be a nigh impossible task, even if anyone could be persuaded to attempt. In all likelihood, the nomination is his if he wants it.

More'south the pity.

Information technology's inside the realm of possibility that Trump defeats Biden in 2024: Modernistic U.S. presidential elections are usually close, given how evenly split the country is — with the Democrats' numbers advantage canceled out by structural Republican force in the most consequential swing states.

Virtually any other Republican would stand a better chance against Biden, however, and Romney — and Romney solitary — has the gamble to win decisively and usher in a new and more united brand of politics.

A saner Republican Party would recall twice before bravado information technology.

Robby Soave is a senior editor of Reason magazine and author of "Tech Panic: Why We Shouldn't Fright Facebook and the Future." His views are his own.

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Source: https://www.deseret.com/2022/3/10/22970330/perspective-romney-2024-the-third-times-a-charm-mitt-romney-for-president