It can be hard to take the idea of a Mitt Romney 2016 presidential run seriously. After all, this is the man who said of losing general election candidates, “They become a loser for life.” At least in presidential terms, he had that mostly right.

But what to make of polls continuing to show Romney at the head of the Republican presidential pack a little more than a year before the Iowa caucuses? A Fox News survey released this week found Romney the GOP leader, with 19 percent, ahead of Jeb Bush, who was pretty far back at 10 percent. Everybody else was bunched together behind Bush.