Romney won't run. Had he sat out the last election, he would be the favorite based on name recognition alone. His people ran a lifeless campaign against an incumbent President, thinking that it was 1980 all over again, but it wasn't. He doesn't have a message for anyone to follow.
his problem (and every other GOP candidate) is that he can't have a message for anyone to follow - he has to have a message for everyone to follow - and as soon as he takes a stand that goes against the GOP base - all 14 different one's - they revolt against him and go to the new flavor of the month who is a flipping idiot.
Don't get me wrong - I didn't want Romney, but all that effort Romney had to invest in showing he was a better candidate than say Herman 999 Grab a secretaries ass Cain just made it that much easier for Obama to rake in the money and votes. And Romney had to do that for Bachman, Cain, Santorum.....
Each time he'd climb back to the top of the polls until another candidate would jump up with their appeal to one faction of the base and Romney would have to beat them back down
And it was clear all along that Romney was going to be the least offensive candidate the Repubs could offer.
You guys talk about wanting a candidate that takes a stand but the first one that does will get chewed up and spit out - because there will be 8 other planks on his platform that some faction of the GOP base will take exception to.
So you end up with the most vanilla moderate you can, admit you don't want him but still demand that everyone vote for him.
