Rand Paul on Possible Mitt Romney Run: 'No, No, No, No'
— -- As recently as October, Ann Romney was poo-pooing the notion of a third Mitt Romney candidacy. After two failed presidential bids, in 2008 and 2012, she and her husband had “moved on,” she told ABC News.
Though sources close to Mitt Romney recently announced he’s once again “thinking about” another bid for the White House, at least one of Romney's GOP colleagues thinks Ann Romney had the right idea.
“I’m with Ann Romney on this one: No, no, no, no, never,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told ABC News' Jonathan Karl at a forum of three likely 2016 presidential candidates in Palm Springs, California, Sunday night.
Romney “would have made a great president,” added Paul, rumored to be considering his own White House bid. “But to win the presidency you have the reach out and appeal to new constituencies. And I just don't think it's possible.”
“And if he thinks, ‘Well, I'm just going to change a few themes and next time I'll reach out to more people,’ I think it's a little more visceral than that,” the libertarian lawmaker said of Romney.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, another Republican rumored to be harboring presidential ambitions, said Romney's infamous on-camera gaffe cost Republicans the White House.
“I think in 2012, the reason Republicans lost can be sum up it in two words: 47 percent,” Cruz said at the forum.
Just months before the 2012 election, Romney was caught on tape at a private fundraiser telling guests that they shouldn’t “worry about” the 47 percent of people “who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.”
“I don't just mean that comment,” Cruz said. “The central narrative of the last election, what the voters heard, was, ‘We don't have to worry about the 47 percent.’ And I think Republicans are and should be the party of the 47 percent.
“We should be fighting for the little guy who has dreams and hopes and desires,” he said.
The forum’s third guest, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., refused to “Monday morning quarterback” Romney’s performance in 2012.
“I think he put it all into the race,” Rubio said. “He's someone who's earned the right to decide whatever it is he wants to do.”
