There are a lot of articles on the 'net at the moment suggesting that Mitt Romney might well be the Republican nominee in 2016. I don't believe any of the predictions about '16 have much validity at this moment but this one strikes me as especially wrong.
Here's why I don't think Mitt has a chance. He lost by a pretty wide margin last time. A lot of us think it isn't so much that he lost but that a majority of Americans rejected the Republican platform and the G.O.P. approach to government. Republicans, naturally, don't see it that way. They think the platform and approach were just fine…or at least, a lot better than what the Other Side was offering.
So how do they explain that big loss? Easy: Right message, wrong messenger. They believe Conservatism couldn't have failed, Mitt must have. And he's not going to change very much. I mean, if Mitt was a bad candidate in 2012, he's going to be just as bad a candidate in 2016. Romney can't get the nomination if a substantial part of the G.O.P. believes that he gave them four more years of Obama by being a crummy candidate who couldn't even beat someone as obviously flawed and failed as Barack Obama.
Somewhere on the 'net — I'd link to it if I could find it again — I once saw a chart that listed who the front-runners were for the two parties' presidential nominations were, two years before the conventions. If you left incumbents out of the mix, it turned out to be largely a list of people who at one point looked like they'd probably get the nomination…but didn't. (Remember when Newt anounced he had it sewed up? And that was months, not years before it was final.) So no matter who the polls suggest has the inside track — or even a lock on it — as of this week, I don't think you can say with any real confidence who'll be the nominee.
But you can sure name some people who won't be. I won't be on either ticket. You won't be on either ticket. Justin Bieber won't be on either ticket. Donald Sterling won't be. SpongeBob SquarePants won't be.
And Mitt won't be. All the chatter that he's a possibility is just people who have to write about something writing about something. As reporter Jack Germond once said and as I often quote, "The trouble with reporting is that we're not paid to say 'I don't know' even when we don't know." But I know that Mitt will not be the candidate. SpongeBob has a better chance.