Romney defeating Bush in GOP establishment primary

Almost immediately after Mitt Romney announced he was not running in the 2016 race, I speculated that he may be engaging in a clever ploy to stay out of the line of political fire, hoping that former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) fails as a candidate and the growing army of GOP presidential candidates creates a deadlock for the Republican nomination, and the party turns to … Mitt Romney!

There are many scenarios that could unfold in the GOP race. It is certainly possible that a candidate such as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) or Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) could catch fire and seize the Republican nomination. I have an upcoming column about Rubio that considers his prospects.

If Romney, the Republican 2012 nominee, is actually pursuing the Machiavellian strategy I suggest, recent events in the GOP make this scenario even more likely. Currently, the absurdly growing GOP field makes a deadlocked primary and convention process more likely, with numerous candidates holding between 8 and 13 percent of the GOP vote. The GOP debates could well become a farce with so many candidates.

{mosads}Next, in the unlikely event that one of the right-wing candidates such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) begins winning primaries, I guarantee that the entire GOP national party leadership will move aggressively to stop that candidate, correctly fearing that candidate would lose a landslide to Hillary Clinton (D). In this case they would almost certainly turn to … Mitt Romney!

For this scenario to unfold, there is a secondary primary process, outside the formal primary process, to determine who the establishment compromise nominee would be. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) could have played that role, but it ended on a bridge to New York. A Machiavellian Romney would have nothing to fear from Christie.

In my theory, the big bet Romney would have to have made is that the Bush’s campaign would fail, paving the way for Romney as the alternative to a rightist front-runner or a deadlocked convention.

Let’s be direct. This Romney bet, if he made it, appears to be paying off. Bush has been a very weak candidate, another name in a big bunch of mid-range candidates. Bush could not answer the obvious question about the Iraq War initiated by his brother, George W. Bush (Bush 43). A long list of aides, advisers, donors and supporters of Bush 43 are refusing to support Jeb Bush. Why? The right dislikes Jeb Bush even more than they dislike Romney. And Bush has very high negative ratings generally and among Republicans, while Romney gets great public relations from a charity boxing match and supports various GOP candidates in many states.

The more Bush lags in the GOP sweepstakes, the more Romney gains in the GOP establishment primary within the larger primaries.

Romney, by nature, is a takeover artist. Might he be planning his greatest takeover since the 2012 Republican National Convention? Every week brings more evidence that his big bet has a real chance of paying off.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. Contact him at brentbbi@webtv.net.