For most of the past year, Mitt Romney supporters have publicly said he should consider running again. And for most of the past year, Romney has seemed uninterested.
Until recently.
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While some people close to Romney insist he hasn’t moved from saying he has no plans to run, the 2012 Republican nominee has sounded at least open to the idea in recent conversations, according to more than a dozen people who’ve spoken with him in the last month.
In his private musings, Romney has sounded less than upbeat about most of the potential candidates in the 2016 Republican field, according to the people who’ve spoken with him, all of whom asked for anonymity in order to speak freely.
He has assessed various people’s strengths and weaknesses dispassionately, wearing what one ally called his “consultant cap” to measure the field. He has said, among other things, that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, would run into problems because of his business dealings, his work with the investment banks Lehman Brothers and Barclays, and his private equity investments.
“You saw what they did to me with Bain [Capital],” he has said, referring to the devastating attacks that his Republican rivals and President Obama’s team launched against him for his time in private equity, according to three sources familiar with the line. “What do you think they’ll do to [Bush] over Barclays?”
Romney did not respond to a request for comment left with his son’s firm, Solemere Capital, where the former Massachusetts governor serves as an adviser. Spencer Zwick, finance chair of Romney’s 2012 campaign chairman and now a senior executive at Solamere, declined to comment on any discussions Romney may have had with investors or anyone else about 2016.
“I’d very much like him to run and think he would make a great president and a lot of people who supported him in 2012 and even those who did not support him want him to run,” Zwick said. “That doesn’t mean he will run.”
For most of the past year, even Republicans who admire Romney have believed the chatter about him possibly running for president has been mostly sparked by his former staffers or people involved with Solemere, seeing it as a boon for business.
Romney’s new tone in discussions with people behind closed doors came as Bush has seemed to move closer toward a run. A number of donors and operatives who had assumed Bush would take a pass now believe he is likely to enter the race.
People close to Romney stressed that he has deep respect for Bush.
“He thinks Gov. Bush was a good governor,” said one source close to Romney, who added that the former Massachusetts governor has still maintained he has no plans to run. However, the source added, there is a “growing chorus” of people who would like to see him do it again.
“There’s a core group of people around Mitt who think he should take another stab at it,” said the source. That has grown to include some former donors, who have told other candidates that they are waiting to see what Romney does. With a crowded GOP field expected to take shape, the stance also buys donors time to decide on a candidate.
Those people say Romney has felt vindicated by many of the events of the past two years, such as Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.
Most Republicans still doubt that Romney would subject himself to a third grueling national run. They believe he is basking in the praise of his supporters, after the sharp disappoint of his 2012 loss, for which he was vilified by some Republicans at the time.
But top Wall Street executives who met with Romney on his recent trip to New York said they came away from the sit-downs – which mostly focused on Solemere, his son Tagg’s Solamere investment firm – more convinced the 2012 nominee was thinking about another run.
“I came away from the conversation with the distinct impression that he was running and that he did not think anyone in the field right now was particularly strong,” said one top executive who met with Romney and requested not to be identified while speaking about a private conversation.
“It sounded like he felt he could win, and that the country had turned in his direction and he looks at the field and does not see anyone who does not look very beatable,” said the executive.
This executive and another who met with Romney said they were struck by the former Massachusetts governor’s comments about Bush, who is also strongly considering a run. These executives said Romney indicated that he would not defer to Bush as the standard-bearer of the establishment wing of the Republican Party.
They also said Romney indicated that Bush would run into even more issues about his business dealings than Romney did over his private equity fortune in 2012. Bush’s latest investment funds, which include offshore tax havens and Chinese investors, were detailed in a Bloomberg Businessweek story on Thursday, indicating they will be an ongoing focus should the former Florida governor enter the race.
“[Romney] tells people not to commit to a candidate that is not their first choice and that they aren’t excited about,” the second executive, who was involved in the meetings, said. “He does not think much of the current field and does not think it is jelling. He still views himself as the leader of the establishment wing of the Republican Party. He does not feel he owes the Bushes anything and does not think Jeb is the de facto leader of the establishment GOP.”
Another person close to Romney said that the former governor’s “body language” is different now and he is “certainly taking a harder look” at getting in the 2016 race. Still, one Romney supporter cautioned that people who want him to run sometimes hear what they want to hear in the former governor’s comments.
Nonetheless, several people have noticed a change in tone, which comes after Romney previously indicated to people that he would only get into the race under an extreme circumstance in which party leaders drafted him during an inconclusive primary process.
“In September he said to me that he’s run twice and now it’s other people’s turn,” said Bobbie Kilberg, a GOP fund-raiser in Virginia who is hoping Republicans can coalesce early around a single center-right establishment candidate.
People who believe Romney has shifted in his thinking said they are unclear about whether he wants to run regardless of the field, or whether he would wait to see how Bush and other candidates fare.
Another top Republican operative who is supportive of a Jeb Bush candidacy described Romney as “already running,” making the question of deferring to Bush a moot point. “There’s no decision to make on this if you are already in,” this person said. The operative added that he did not believe Bush would have as much trouble with his financial dealings in a campaign as Romney did.
“Jeb’s wealth and investments are nothing on the scale of Romney’s. He is not building car elevators in Malibu mansions,” this person said, offering a hint of the bitterness that could ensue if both Romney and Bush run.
Indeed, Bush, for his part, has begun conducting opposition research on himself to identify any potential issues that could arise, a standard move for potential candidates but nonetheless one that indicates his level of seriousness about the process, two people familiar with his plans said.
He has also had discussions about how he would get out of his business ventures. Indeed, one Bush supporter said the former Florida governor would be far more proactive than Romney was in responding to attacks about his business record, which Romney made central to his run.
There will be “no fetal position” from Bush, said the source, a reference to Romney’s decision to wait until he had been defined by Democrats to start hitting back and defining himself.
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