BOSTON GLOBE: After weeks of urgent phone calls, strategy sessions, and a pair of closely watched campaign-style appearances, Mitt Romney told his supporters Friday he will not run for president a third time, abruptly ending a three-week flirtation and clearing the way for a slew of newcomers in the emerging Republican field for 2016.
The announcement illuminated Romney’s inner conflict between his White House dreams and the prospect of a highly taxing campaign that could end in another failure. Ultimately, he decided he did not have the stomach for another brutal run and, moreover, would be so weakened by the nomination battle that it might be difficult to beat Hillary Clinton, his oldest son, Tagg Romney, told the Globe.
Romney concluded he could help his party more by staying out of the race than by jumping in. “After putting considerable thought into making another run for president, I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the party the opportunity to become our next nominee,” Romney said on a conference call from New York… (more)
EDITOR: “This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
The “real” Mitt Romney might have made a very good president. He was a successful moderate Republican governor of Massachusettes and the initial author of what later became the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”). To curry conservative support, he turned his back on his crowning achievement. How sad.
