Two questions:
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Mitt Romney looks like he might have his sights on the White House in '08. Does he stand a chance at winning?
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How will that bode for America if he does? Will he be better than Bush? In what ways?
He seems like a decent sort. But I honestly don’t know what his chances are. These things will get hashed out in the primaries, and there are some really strong contenders right now.
He may or may not be electable in a general election. But he’ll never make it through the primaries.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0509.sullivan1.html
Sua
Who the @#$% is Mitt Romney?
He can’t be re-elected governor next year, either, although he hasn’t officially announced it. In his campaigning down South, he’s done a lot of bad-mouthing of dem nasty ol’ Massachusetts libruls who’ve kept him from accomplishing anything much as Governor, but keep insisting on the right to abortion and even gay marriage. That shit comes back to us, and immediately. Current polls shown him down about 2-1 to Tom Reilly, the AG. He does have cleaning up the Salt Lake Olympics to point to, but not many people remember that anymore, or much care.
If he isn’t going to run for President, he’s going back into business consulting. Got to. And I don’t see him inspiring much support, either, even though he’s handsome and well-spoken. He needs to get the Southern Baptists to the polls, and I don’t see a Mormon doing that.
Do decent sorts want to wiretap America’s mosques?
Sounds like just another republican trying to make a name for himself by playing on right wing fears to me.
Current Republican governor of Massachusetts, whose former claim to fame was cleaning up the Salt Lake City Olympics.
It seems to me that the current prevailing opinion in MA is that he’s largely given up on governing the state and is instead running for the GOP ticket. Given that he’s a first-termer and this means running far to teh right of the people what elected him, this is pissing us off up here. he’s also broken a bunch of promises he made, especially regarding education. At this moment, he’s being accused of ignoring flooding in the western half of the state, and that’s something any Republican should avoid at this moment.
He’ll never make it. His is the first and only state that’s actually allowing the gay marriages (I know, by judicial order, but the legislature has been frustrating attempts at an amendment to ban it so far, which is almost the same as allowing it). He’s the very model of a conservative being squashed by liberals. I’d guess he’ll drop out before the first primary ballot is cast, possibly using his wife’s health as an out.
FWIW, his father, George Romney, was Governor of Michigan and a plausible GOP Presidential candidate in 1968. His campaign fell apart when he said he had been “brainwashed” by the US military when touring South Vietnam. Prior to that, he was the creator and first head of American Motors.
Romney has another problem in the primaries: getting all the extreme Right-wing leaders who have spent most of their adult lives condemning the “cult” of “Mormonism” to turn themselves inside out to support him just because he is on their side, politically.
I do not think he has much chance. (Although, if he garnered the endorsement of some of those guys, it would be fun holding up comparative before-and-after statements.)
I think Romney would make a great POTUS, but I too just don’t see it ever coming to pass.
As others have pointed out, his religion will be a big hurdle on the road to a general election. Also, his list of accomplishments in the Democraticly controlled MA political scense is very limited. The legislature in MA doesn’t have to listen to him. They have enough votes that they can overturn his vetos and pretty much do whatever they want.
A good example of his impotence has been the continued existance of Matt Amorello as the turnpike authority chairman. If anybody ever deserved to be run out of town, it’s this guy. He had a big part of the scandelous big dig project problems and runs an incompetant and corrupt department. Romney has tried to remove him for a while now but just doesn’t have the power to get it done.
I don’t think any of this is Romney’s fault. But you need a track record of accoplishments to run for president, and his current situation just doesn’t allow him to get anything done.
Debaser, spell check is your friend. 
What Sua and tomndebb said: this guy can’t win the nomination. Hence not worth further consideration.
Sometimes I wonder if Romney might try to piss off Massachusetts enough to lose big time there, which would allow him to point to his most recent home state and say, “Look how much those lib’ruls hate me! I’ve been rejected by the state of Ted Kennedy and John Kerry and civil rights for gays! I’d be a great conservative president!”
Probably not, I realize; that would be a pretty flimsy platform, and I guess it’s kind of farfetched. But I don’t suppose America is ready to vote for a social conservative who doesn’t at least try to pass himself off like a fiscal conservative—you know, like George W. Bush managed to do.
One thing I’m wondering about is: is he actually seeking a second term in Massachusetts? If not, are there any Republicans running? I sure know it ain’t gonna be Bill Weld…
I moved out of MA in 2001–just about to the day when Swift became governor. All I remember about Romney was his getting beat by Weld in '95 (I think). How did he get elected governor? Who was his main opponent?
National office? I don’t think so. The rest of the country may have suspicions about MA, but they can see unpopularity too.
Weekly Standard did an article about Mitt Romney, In 2008, Will It Be Mormon in America?
How bizarre. I’m a liberal and I’d vote for a Mormon, if I agreed with the candidate’s positions. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m an agnostic who was raised Catholic. I don’t think I ever voted in an election where any of the candidates were Mormons, but it really doesn’t make a difference to me.
I guess it doesn’t matter to the Mormons, either. Fun fact: the first mayor of Salt Lake City was Jewish.
Shannon O’Brien, the state treasurer. He got elected the way Republican governors in MA usually do, by portraying himself as the outsider/reformer against the corrupt insider cabal member, with an image of being a good manager coming off the Salt Lake Olympics problem.
Swift got out with a huge knife sticking out of her back, not only because of her own (perhaps overemphasized) abuses of power for personal convenience. She had tried to fire Christy Mihos from the Turnpike Commission, but without actually having the authority to do so, and had to back down. Mihos took it upon himself to commission a poll of gubernatorial candidates, including Romney’s name, which came out on top, well ahead of Swift. He released it to the press (and to Romney, who hadn’t even been thinking of the job), Swift’s blood was in the water, and the rest took its natural course.
Chance, he hasn’t made any announcements yet, but there’s no way he could run for re-election anyway. He’s burned his bridges before even crossing them. LG Healey may run, but if she does, Mihos says he’d run too, just because some competition would be good for her. And if you take *that * at face value, you haven’t been paying attention.
List of Mayors of Salt Lake City
George Montgomery Scott was the first non-Mormon mayor, but he was 8th and a member of the Episcopal Church.
Louis Marcus was Jewish, but he was the 21st mayor.