Tuesday, June 21, 2005

A Fair Characterization

I'm not quite sure why this is news, or "new" at any rate, but the AP had a story where Governor Mitt Romney went on the record as saying he was looking into running for President. Only, he didn't really come right out and say it, he did the typical Romney thing and tried to leave some weasel room -- in case he finds himself "in a different place" later on, I'm sure. Here's the quote from the AP:

"If someone said, well, you know, the governor's testing the national waters, that's a fair characterization," Romney said. "But I'm planning on running for governor. Time will tell, I'll make a final decision and an announcement in the fall, and we'll go from there."
In other words, it would be fair for someone else to say that he's running, but it's too much for him to admit that he's interested himself.

In the meantime, Mitt is on the verge of hanging the state GOP out to dry. I noted back in February that some state Republicans were getting antsy for the governor to make up his mind. The longer he waits, the harder it's going to be for potential gubernatorial candidates to raise money for a run of their own. Well, candidates other than Kerry Healey, of course, who Romney has already endorsed should he decline to run again. Maybe that's his plan -- wait as long as possible to make sure that Healey (who would already be the frontrunner) is a shoe-in for the Republican primary. That's fine with me, because I am not convinced that Healey will be a particularly good candidate, but wonder if the Republican rank-and-file are going to like having no say in who their nominee is going to be.