Failed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney thinks he’d run a better administration than Hillary Clinton, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to mount another campaign in 2016.
“I’m not running, I’m not planning on running,” Romney said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Host Chris Wallace pressed Romney, asking “In your heart do you still think you’d make the best president of all the people out there?”
“My time has come and gone,” Romney said. “I had that opportunity. I ran and didn’t win and now it’s time for someone else to pick up the baton.”
When asked if he think he’d make a better president than Hillary Clinton, Romney responded saying, “no question about that in my mind … the American people may disagree with me.”
The former Massachusetts Governor has seemingly been testing the waters again in recent weeks, and polls in New Hampshire and Iowa give him a commanding lead over other possible Republican presidential contenders.
“These numbers should make you pause for a minute,” Steve Kornacki said on Sunday. “My advice would be to not dismiss it quite so quickly.”
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On Sunday’s “UP w/Steve Kornacki,” the host made a case for why Romney could still run — saying he’s not so sure the Republican party thinks they can do better than the former presidential candidate.
“The one guy who could stand in his way is Jeb Bush,” Stephen Moore from the Heritage Foundation said on the Sunday show.
Bush, the former Florida governor, has been signaling a 2016 run for the establishment this summer; last week, The Wall Street Journal reported via Republican strategists and fundraisers that Bush advisers hinted a run hasn’t been ruled out.
Sunday was not the first time Romney has said he is not running: He mentioned it twice before but has left the door more open in the past, saying “circumstances can change” in an August interview.
Meredith Clark
Meredith Clark is a freelance writer and editor. She was previously a senior news producer for "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj," a reporter with MSNBC.com, the digital politics and culture editor at Glamour and a senior news and politics editor at Refinery29. She has written for Vulture, Rolling Stone, Self, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast and Bustle.