A Romney Revival?

It seems these days, everything’s coming up Romney. There’s talk the two-time presidential candidate and the 2012 Republican nominee ought to run for the job again in 2016. Writing in PoliticoÂ magazine, Emil Henry makes “the case for Mitt Romney” and draws comparisons to Richard Nixon’s political resuscitation after eight years as vice president, a failed presidential run in 1960, and a failure to win the California governor’s race two years later:

Romney recognizes well the historical odds against becoming a repeat nominee. In the film Mitt, which documents his two presidential campaigns, he is captured at a fundraiser making an âLâ on his forehead to depict how a failed nominee becomes âa loser for life.â âWe just brutalize whoever loses,â he says. We can assume George McGovern, Michael Dukakis, Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry and John McCain came to a similar conclusion.

Will Romney be different from these other failed nominees? Could he defy the odds and make a comeback presidential bid capturing the GOP nomination after all the doubt, second-guessing and blame that accompany such a loss? According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, many Americans seem to think soâ45 percent of voters said the United States would be better off today with Romney as president.

And Romney hasn’t exactly disappeared from the political scene. He’s made some high-profile endorsements in this year’s Senate races, including rising political star Joni Ernst of Iowa. The latest is a little more predictable, though perhaps no less effective, with the former Massachusetts governor endorsing former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown last week in the latter’s bid for Senate in neighboring New Hampshire. (Like Romney, Brown lost in 2012.)