I’ve said several times that, after the tampering/rigging/fraud debacles of ’20 and ’22, the only interest I’ll have in national “elections” going forward will be for their entertainment value, nothing more. Which, for 2024, is already looking as if it might turn out to be much higher than anticipated.
Good news, everyone! Mitt Romney (D, but R when necessary-Utah) has a plan for victory in the 2024 presidential race. That plan involves forcing Trump out of the field of candidates. Romney outlined his pathway to victory in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. While bemoaning the fact that Trump will likely be the nominee, Romney holds out hope that The Donald can be defeated, provided the race is narrowed down to two contenders before Trump “sews up” the nomination. For that to happen, the mega-donors and influencers in the GOP must convince those candidates who do not have a realistic chance of winning to drop out of the race.
HA! To rejigger that great Morpheus line just a wee mite: Mitt, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
He concedes that this may be easier said than done, but the risk of having expendable candidates in the race is just too high:
There are incentives for no-hope candidates to overstay their prospects. Coming in behind first place may grease another run in four years or have market value of its own: Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum got paying gigs. And as former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu has observed, “It is fun running for president if you know you cannot win.”
Left to their own inclinations, expect several of the contenders to stay in the race for a long time. They will split the non-Trump vote, giving him the prize. A plurality is all that is needed for winner-take-all primaries.
Romney suggests a drop-dead date of Monday, Feb. 26. That is the first business day after the contests in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada. He goes so far as to suggest that donors to lower-tier candidates extract a pledge from them that they will drop out if their prospects are dim after the fateful Monday.
Keep in mind that this is the same guy who was singing the praises of hot dogs just last week. And a man who has not shown his face at a single state or county GOP convention since he ran for Senate. I should know. I’ve been to more of them than he has.
Man, talk about your no-hopers—if ever there was one, it would have to be Mittens Romneycare, whose only real rival in terms of manifestly-doomed pResidential runs was recently-anointed grifter and pedophile Faux Jaux Bribem. As for Too Old Jaux, just a wweek or so ago his handlers announced his intention to conduct his “campaign” for re-“election” from his sarcophagus in the palatial basement of his Delaware home mansion palace, being far too frail and decrepit to actually come outside and attempt to move around any without the risk of falling and breaking his hip yet again.
Which jacks the entertainment value straight up to Everest-level heights.
Romney is still cheesed that Trump made him grovel publicly for Secretary of State and then handed it off to someone else.
It remains one of the most beautiful political put downs that has ever occurred.
And yet he’d probably not be acting any different for anyone else in MAGA mode. He just relishes the role more this way. (Relish. Hot Dog. Get it?)