US politician Mitt Romney stepped away from what would have been his third US presidential run and reset the field in the battle for the 2016 US Republican Party nomination.
The former Massachusetts governor’s decision freed up vast quantities of political oxygen for the potential runs by other Republicans contenders, especially former Florida governor Jeb Bush — son of one Republican former US president and brother of another.
The broad — but still unannounced — field of possible candidates is jockeying to be the Republican Party contender who faces off against likely Democrat nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton — former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state.
The election to pick a successor to US President Barack Obama is still 21 months away and none of the potential candidates has said for certain whether they would make a run for the Republican nomination. Bush has taken initial steps toward a run, and so have New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and US Senator from Florida Marco Rubio.
Romney had run for president twice before. Before claiming the nomination to oppose Obama in 2012, he lost a primary bid to US Senator John McCain in 2008. Obama took big wins each time.
For now, polls show Bush as the front-runner. The mainstream Republican candidates are expected to be hard-pressed to avoid being pushed too far to the right of the political spectrum in their bid to win the nomination. The series of state primary and caucus votes are dominated by conservative activists and voters.
Romney’s drift to the right during the primaries was seen as one reason for his loss to Obama in 2012.
Bush and Romney are deeply at odds over the direction of the Republican Party, which has been unable to appeal to black and Hispanic voters. In the 2012 campaign Romney, alienated Hispanics in particular by saying that US immigration policy should encourage people illegally in the nation to “self-deport.”
That position opened a rift with Bush, whose wife was born in Mexico.
After his 2012 loss, Romney had repeatedly said that he was done with presidential politics.
However, three weeks ago, Romney appeared to do an about-face, saying that he was considering another run. He made calls to former fundraisers, staff members and supporters, and gave three public speeches in which he outlined his potential vision for another campaign — focusing this time on the plight of the middle class.
Critics jabbed the new focus as an insincere shift designed to shed his image as an out-of-touch millionaire. Those closer to Romney suggested that it was a truer reflection of a man of deep faith than most voters saw during his first two presidential campaigns.
It was an attempt to distance himself from 2012, when he was caught on video telling a room full of wealthy donors that 47 percent of US citizens — middle and low-income US citizens — would vote for Obama no matter what he did.
US residents “who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you-name-it,” Romney said.
In the end, Romney’s exit on Friday reflected the defection to Bush of several of his former major donors and a veteran staffer.
While likely boosting the chances of Bush, Christie, Walker and Rubio, Romney’s departure leaves unchanged the more conservative side of the field, with a group of candidates that will likely include Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
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