Mitt Romney’s surprise re-entry into the Republican presidential race continued to provoke debate on Sunday, one prominent supporter saying the former Massachusetts governor “checks three of the boxes” other contenders may not.
On Friday, Romney, who lost out on the nomination in 2008 and lost the presidential election in 2012, spoke to the Republican National Committee in San Diego. He said: “I’m giving some serious consideration to the future. But this I know: we can win in 2016 … if we communicate a clear vision of where we’re taking this country.”
Romney, a multimillionaire businessman who in 2012 made a famous gaffe in dismissing “47%” of Americans as “dependent on government” and this guaranteed not to vote Republican, also said that if he ran again he would “stand for safety and for opportunity for all people, and we have to stand for helping lift people out of poverty”.
His hints at another run have provoked strong opposition from a number of Republican sources and observers: the Wall Street Journal and its proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, among them.
Nevertheless, on Sunday Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, a vocal Romney supporter, said the former governor “checks three of the boxes that the rest of the candidates don’t necessarily do”.
“One, he’s vetted,” Chaffetz said, “we know exactly what we’re going to get. There won’t be that October surprise that Republicans are too apt to be worried about.”
In 2012, Romney infamously refused to release his full tax returns.
“Two, I think he’s proven right about so many issues, especially domestic policy and foreign policy. He almost looked prophetic [in 2012] talking about Russia and the war on terror and those types of things. So we know he was right on the issues.”
Though in 2012 he identified an expansionist Russia as America’s “No1 geopolitical foe”, Romney generally struggled to convince on foreign policy. He also made some embarrassing errors, such as appearing to question London’s readiness to host the summer Olympic Games.
“And third, we know he’s someone who can raise the $1bn it will take in order to beat Hillary Clinton, and certainly Mitt Romney can do that.”
Clinton, the former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state, is the clear frontrunner among potential Democratic nominees to succeed Barack Obama in the White House.
Ken Cuccinelli, the former Virginia attorney general who was beaten in a gubernatorial race by the Democratic fundraiser Terry McAuliffe and now runs the Senate Conservatives Fund, disagreed with Chaffetz about the desirability of another Romney run.
“He wasn’t an inspirational character,” Cuccinelli told CNN. “He doesn’t bring a philosophy that he can articulate well.”
Also on Sunday, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC he had set up a “testing-the-waters committee” to allow him to consider a presidential bid. Graham said he was unsure “where this will go”. His home state is the site of the first southern primary.
Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who has quit his Fox TV show to “explore” another run, having briefly flourished in the race for the Republican nomination in 2008, declined to confirm his candidacy while appearing on ABC.
He said: “I think there’s a very strong likelihood that some time in the spring … I’ll make some sort of declaration and state my intentions, that sort of thing.”
Huckabee denied he had ever said he would step aside if the former Florida governor Jeb Bush decided to run for the White House, which Bush has now done.
The former Baptist minister also defended comments in his new book – titled God, Guns, Grits and Gravy and designed to re-state his conservative credentials – about Beyoncé, Jay-Z and Barack and Michelle Obama’s choice to let his daughters listen to their music.
