Conservatives in the news media are giving 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney the cold shoulder.
After news broke last week that Romney, the former Republican presidential nominee, is considering a third run for the White House, response from conservative writers and TV pundits, many of whom championed Romney in 2012, was anything but enthusiastic.
On Wednesday, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, whose media empire includes the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Fox News and Fox Business News, reportedly dubbed Romney “a terrible candidate.”
Before the 2012 election, conservative columnist George Will put his name on a landslide prediction for Romney. He was wrong and apparently doesn’t want to be put in the position of making that prediction again.
“Romney’s third presidential run would be no charm,” Will wrote in his latest column. Romney “lost a winnable race in 2012,” Will wrote.
Jennifer Rubin, a Republican blogger for the Washington Post, was one of Romney’s biggest cheerleaders in 2012. In the last week, she wrote two post criticizing Romney’s flirtation with 2016.
“Like a car wreck, Mitt Romney’s announcement that he is considering a third presidential run is so cringe-inducing and yet fascinating that you cannot avert your eyes,” Rubin said in a Friday blog post.
Editor of the conservative Weekly Standard Bill Kristol was critical of Romney’s run in 2012. That hasn’t changed. On MSNBC Wednesday, Kristol commented on a recent report that quoted a Romney aide saying that if Romney were president, the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria wouldn’t exist and Russian President Vladimir Putin “would know his place in life.”
“All Romney aides should shut up,” Kristol said. “It’s the only chance he has to win.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan flattered Romney in several op-eds in 2012. Before the election she wrote that “all the vibrations are right” for a Romney win. But on Friday, she said, “He is yesterday, we need tomorrow.”
The Journal itself published a brutal editorial on Romney. He would be, it said, “the ideal foil” for Democrats in 2016.
