“I think the biggest mistake I made was not focusing very early on minority voters.”
— Mitt Romney, explaining to NBC News why he lost the 2012 presidential election.
“I think the biggest mistake I made was not focusing very early on minority voters.”
— Mitt Romney, explaining to NBC News why he lost the 2012 presidential election.
“We tried tall, good looking, smart, nice, great family man. Vote for me, we’re not going down that path again.”
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by the Boston Globe, speaking at Mitt Romney’s summit over the weekend.
“With all that bad news, is it not true that arguably President Obama is the worst foreign policy president in history? I think he is.”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by the Washington Post, after giving a presentation to about 200 GOP donors.
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“You know, it’s wonderful watching a campaign when you’re seeing it from the outside. I don’t look back and second guess. I don’t say, ‘Oh I wish I made a different decision.’ I’m glad I made the decision I did. And I’m looking forward to playing what limited role a guy who lost can play in a presidential contest.”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by the Boston Globe.
“Mitt Romney is working with an unlikely collaborator — Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who bankrolled Newt Gingrich’s 2012 campaign — in the hopes of ensuring that the GOP primary produces a mainstream conservative without any of the mayhem that marked his own race,” Politico reports.
“The two, who speak monthly, aim to convince the wealthy contributors bankrolling various candidates to work together to avoid the kind of primary election chaos that Romney believes laid the seeds for his defeat in 2012. The former Massachusetts governor is also considering endorsing a candidate to achieve his goal.”
“They’re unmistakable signs of Romney’s newly assertive role in the Republican Party but also of his determination to guarantee the GOP an unbloodied nominee with broad-based appeal.”
The Hill: “The site for the gathering is Park City, Utah. The Republican hopefuls scheduled to attend are Sen. Marco Rubio, Gov. Scott Walker, Gov. John Kasich, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Chris Christie and businesswoman Carly Fiorina. According to multiple media reports, Jeb Bush was invited but could not attend because of a trip to Europe.”
“One of the prime attractions of the event will be the ability to connect to Romney’s formidable donor network. For all his much-discussed missteps as a candidate, Romney remained financially competitive with President Obama in 2012.”
Jeb Bush “may have a lot of advantages as the 2016 race begins – money, name recognition, a network of supporters. But Mr. Bush has a problem with conservatives,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“How bad is it? Compare his standing to that of 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who famously struggled to win over his party’s base. Mr. Romney’s numbers appeared healthier than Mr. Bush’s, around the same point in the races.”
“Mitt Romney, who earlier this year decided against a third presidential bid after briefly flirting with a run, will jump back into the national political scene next month when he hosts GOP presidential hopefuls and some of the party’s biggest donors in Utah,” the Washington Post reports.
“Confirmed speakers from the likely 2016 Republican field include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Marco Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and Sen. Lindsey Graham. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, long seen as a Romney rival due to tensions between their camps, was invited but will not attend, per a Romney ally.”
“Where he got clobbered was 47%. I think Romney is a good man who had a hard campaign, but I cannot think of a statement in all of politics that I disagree with more strongly.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), quoted by CNN, on why Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election.
“I was stunned by it. I mean, it looks like bribery.”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by The Week, on donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign governments.
Jeb Bush said he “would not make the same mistakes as Mitt Romney during a private event in New York on Thursday, saying the 2012 Republican nominee was unable to connect with voters in a genuine way,” the Washington Free Beacon reports.
Said Bush: “He made it about a referendum on the president’s policies rather than about himself. He didn’t show his heart. He didn’t send a signal that he cared about people, when he did.”
Politico: “Forget about the Arkansas days, the small-bore scandals, her health care plan, and most everything else from the 1990s. A consensus is forming within the Republican Party that the plan of attack against Hillary Clinton should be of a more recent vintage, rooted in her accumulation of wealth and designed to frame her as removed from the concerns of average Americans.”
“The out-of-touch plutocrat template is a familiar one: Democrats used it to devastating effect against Republican Mitt Romney in 2012. While Hillary Clinton’s residences in New York and Washington may not have car elevators, there’s still a lengthy trail of paid speeches, tone-deaf statements about the family finances and questions about Clinton family foundation fundraising practices that will serve as cornerstones of the anti-Clinton messaging effort.”
“Romney didn’t win did he?”
— Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), in a CNN interview, saying he had no regrets accusing Mitt Romney of not paying his taxes during the 2012 presidential campaign.
“I think there’ll be a lot of Democrats there paying good money to see me get beaten up.”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by MSNBC, on his charity boxing match against former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield.
“Jeb Bush has quickly and efficiently been locking in one of the most sought-after prizes of the early Republican presidential primary race: Mitt Romney’s donor network,” the Boston Globe reports.
“In the two weeks since the former Massachusetts governor announced that he wasn’t going to run again for president, Bush has aggressively scooped up key former Romney contributors in the private equity and investment worlds… Of Romney’s top five lobbyist bundlers in 2012 — who each raised at least $1 million — four are supporting or likely to support Bush. The fifth is on the fence.”
New York Times: “The news on Friday that Mr. Romney would opt out of the race revealed as much about the party in 2015 as it did about the former Massachusetts governor’s weaknesses as a candidate. Republican leaders, especially the party’s wealthiest donors, are in an impatient and determined mood. They are eager to turn to a new face they believe can defeat what they anticipate will be a strong, well-funded Democratic opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
“The campaign to deny Mr. Romney another chance began almost immediately after he mused to donors at a Friday get-together in New York City on Jan. 9 that he was open to the possibility of another run. By that Sunday afternoon, William Oberndorf, a prominent California investor who supported Mr. Romney in both of his previous presidential campaigns, had emailed a group of 52 powerful Republicans, including former Secretary of State George Shultz, the investor Charles Schwab, Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois and the Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos with a blunt message: we need to support someone else.”
One day after President Obama mocked him in front of House Democrats, the White House “struck a gracious, conciliatory tone” about Mitt Romney‘s decision not to pursue a 2016 presidential campaign, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said White House press secretary Josh Earnest: “Romney is a man of great faith and a man who has tremendous loyalty and commitment to his country, and that is something that is worthy of our respect. I’m confident that the announcement that he made today was a difficult one. I think he acknowledged as much. But it’s also an intensely personal decision that candidates and their families make.”
“Mitt is a patriot and I join many in hoping his days of serving our nation and our party are not over.”
— Jeb Bush, on Facebook, after Mitt Romney announced he would not run again for president.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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