Mitt Romney Lurks As Dark Horse Candidate For 2016 Republican Nomination

Mitt Romney continues to have his name associated with the 2016 Republican Presidential race despite having sat out this year’s election. Just hours after the 2012 Republican nominee praised Jeb Bush as he dropped out of the race Saturday night, Mitt appeared close to endorsing a candidate as the Huffington Post reported Romney will throw his support behind Senator Marco Rubio.

While Mitt may be acting in good faith as the previous GOP representative, could Romney have different intentions as to why his name continues to surface on a near-weekly basis? Rumors persist Romney would throw his hat in the ring for a chance to redeem himself in the 2016 Presidential race.

For certain, the establishment is not keen on the current GOP front-runner Donald Trump. USA Today reported that the wife of the Chicago Cubs owner, Marlene Ricketts, has poured millions into defeating Trump, and a super PAC known as Our Principles PAC has spent this money running scathing campaign ads targeted at Donald. Unsurprisingly, former Mitt Romney campaign manager Katie Packer runs the group.

For his part, Donald does not like the establishment, either. The Huffington Post detailed how Trump made that clear in the South Carolina primary debate, when he spoke against GOP-supported topics and upheld Democratic values such as support for Planned Parenthood, Obamacare’s individual mandate, and imposing tariffs on companies that outsource employees.

With so much animosity between Donald Trump and the GOP establishment, a contentious brokered convention could be in the works for the Republican party. Several scenarios on how this could happen have been crafted, despite Donald Trump’s sweeping victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina. MSNBC reported Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has already answered questions about the situation, quoting the GOP executive as being prepared for the unlikely situation such as a brokered convention.

“So I’m prepared, and we will be prepared if that happens, but again, I don’t think that’s going to be the case. If it did, then of course, obviously, it would be pretty historic. But we’ll be ready.”

This is where Mitt Romney enters the picture.

Mitt Romney is certainly well liked by the Republican party, both by the establishment and its fringe members. Prior to the beginning of the 2016 presidential race start, the Deseret News reported Romney was receiving daily calls and letter to join the race. Even a presidential candidate already in the race had asked him to run, although Mitt Romney refused to name the candidate.

Another Utah newspaper, the Salt Lake Tribune, published an op-ed piece by a former writer to lay out reasons Mitt would be the right fit for the Republican party should the debate continue to the GOP convention floor this summer. Although Utah remains a Republican stronghold as the party’s presidential candidate has won the past 10 elections, individuals dismissing the piece Ronald B. Scott presents for a moderate like Mitt Romney to win the nomination as wishful may need to reconsider that stance.

“Favorable polling numbers a year ago almost drew him in. His eyebrows raised again in November when the Boston Globe poll showed him trouncing everyone in New Hampshire. And he’s been thinking about it ever since. His chief fund-raiser Spencer Zwick, whom Mitt regards as a sixth son, has long insisted that Romney would answer a call to unite the party.”

Were Donald Trump not to become the GOP candidate, his options to run as an independent remain in play for the majority of the summer. For his part, Donald said on Fox News that it is “highly, highly unlikely” to see Trump run a third-party campaign for the 2016 Presidential race should he not become the party’s candidate, the Hill reported Sunday. But the possibility cannot be ruled out because the former reality TV star believes he can reach across party lines to attract voters and turn firmly-held Democratic states into support centers.

Ben Carson’s thoughts after the South Carolina primary even suggests the Mitt Romney would not have too far to climb to get back into the 2016 presidential race. When asked by the New York Times‘ Jonathan Martin, Carson put the electorate matter facing Romney and all other GOP challengers into perspective.

Carson statement for the ages!

he "received as many delegates in South Carolina as all other candidates but the winner"

— Jonathan Martin (@jmart) February 21, 2016

One other obstacle Donald has cleared for Mitt Romney is the wealth objection many held that Romney, a former CEO at a venture capitalist firm in Massachusetts, was too rich to be an effective leader, the Huffington Post concluded. Indeed, the issue dogged Mitt after securing the 2012 nomination, when Democrats continued to press the GOP candidate to release his financial information to the public. Romney has already called for current candidates to do the same, avoiding some of the pitfalls Mitt suffered.

Mitt Romney isn’t the first person to be rumored to run in 2016 that has rebuked the claims. The Inquisitr previously reported Al Gore, the Democratic nominee in 2000, was being called upon by leaders to run, but Gore, like Mitt Romney, has shown no interest in running for the office a second time.

Do you think Mitt Romney will somehow become the Republican nominee in 2016? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

[Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images]