Now It All Makes Sense: Romney Didn't Really Want To Run For President

That, at least, is the word from Tagg Romney, who told the Boston Globe that he and Ann Romney had to work hard to persuade Mitt to run for the 2012 nomination. It was "his turn" after all!

No one wanted to be president less than Mitt Romney, his son said in an interview out Sunday that raises new questions about the candidacy of the losing Republican nominee. 

In an interview with the Boston Globe examining what went wrong with the Romney campaign, his eldest son Tagg explains that his father had been a reluctant candidate from the start. 

After failing to win the 2008 Republican nomination, Romney told his family he would not run again and had to be persuaded to enter the 2012 White House race by his wife Ann and son Tagg. 

"He wanted to be president less than anyone I've met in my life. He had no desire... to run," Tagg Romney said. "If he could have found someone else to take his place... he would have been ecstatic to step aside." 

Mitt Romney "is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them. He loves his country, but he doesn't love the attention," his son said.

To paraphrase Johnny Rotten, "Ever had the feeling you've just been ripped off?"

I guess now it makes sense how Romney essentially took a dive in the third debate and eased noticeably off of the throttle during the last three weeks of the campaign. He came dangerously close to winning the election - remember how everyone on the left was relieved when Hurricane Sandy hoved into view? - which would not have been an optimal outcome for someone who didn't act like he really wanted the job to begin with.

In a way, we averted disaster of a sort. (trying hard not to diminish the disaster we're living through right now). If Romney couldn't bother to campaign, he certainly wasn't ready to govern in the manner he promised. There would have been no major spending cuts, no tax reform, and, of course, no repeal of Obamacare. It would have been Bush 41 all over again, only without the preceding 8 years of real conservative governance to build on.

Of course, "thanks" to Romney, we had no viable conservative candidate to put up against Obama. While he was not enthusiastic about waging political war against Democrats, he was quite happy to let it rip against his fellow Republicans. Funny how the guy who violated the 11th Commandment didn't really want the job to begin with.