"Before the turn of the century, before Mitt Romney had won any election, it looked like the Romney family's ascending star would be Scott, the older brother.
"The year was 1998 -- four years after Mitt Romney came up short in his bid to beat U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts. Michigan Gov. John Engler, running for his third and final term, had settled on G. Scott Romney, a Bloomfield Hills lawyer with a square jaw and good demeanor and, maybe most importantly, the Romney family name as his choice for the Republican nominee for state attorney general.
"The selection was important: Democratic 'Eternal General' Frank Kelley was retiring after 37 years in office. The sitting governor's choice usually gets the deference at state party conventions. But not in this case.
"Scott Romney lost out to a former western Michigan U.S. attorney, John Smietanka, who would then lose the general election to Wayne County's corporation counsel, Jennifer Granholm, launching the political career of Michigan's first female governor. Scott Romney never ran for such a high-profile job again.
"'Had he won, he probably would have beaten Jennifer Granholm and she probably never would have been governor,' said John Truscott, now a political consultant who was then Engler's spokesman. 'It would have likely given him a clear path to the governor's office.'
https://web.archive.org/web/2013100...chigan-politics-is-in-the-Romney-family-s-DNA
See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Scott_Romney
So suppose Romney does get the nomination and does defeat Granholm in 1998. (Smietanka has always claimed the reason he lost to her was that Engler, embittered by his candidate Romney's loss at the state GOP convention, failed to support Smietanka sufficiently in the election.
http://articles.petoskeynews.com/2003-08-04/answer_24069020) Attorney General Romney runs for governor in 2002, gets the GOP's nomination (though Lieutenant Governor Dick Posthumus could be a strong competitor) and in the general election defeats whoever the Democrats nominated. (2002 was not after all a good year for the Democrats nationwide, and even in Michigan Granholm, though a strong candidate, only defeated Posthumus rather narrowly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_gubernatorial_election,_2002) Let's assume that either he is re-elected in 2006 or declines to run to prepare himself for a 2008 presidential candidacy.
Presumably there is only room for one of the Romney brothers to run in 2008. Which one will it be? Arguably G. Scott, who comes from a state which is more winnable by the GOP than Mitt's Massachusetts. And if G. Scott doesn't sponsor something like Massachusetts Romneycare, he may have more conservative support than Mitt--and a better chance to defeat McCain.
Of course probably any Republican loses to Obama in 2008, and in 2012 G. Scott's problem is that he will be not only a loser in 2008 (as Bryan, Dewey, Stevenson and others show, losing a general election doesn't necessarily mean you can't be renominated four years later) but 71 years old. (Though that's still six years younger than Ron Paul...) If he doesn't run, does the GOP try the other Romney (Mitt) this time?...