AHC: Romney doesn't run in 2012

samcster94

Banned
Let's face it, the Republicans had a set of poor candidates in 2012. One of which was a throwback to the 90's, another a conspiracy theorist, and the other an extreme social conservative. What if Romney didn't run at all that year. Who runs instead of him??? Bonus points if Jeb decides to run.
 
My favorite scenario is the one in which Romney is nominated in 2008 and loses, opening up the field in 2012. In ATL 2012, you could have Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Mitch Daniels, and John Ensign all running.
 
If Romney decides to not run, does Trump spot a potential opening four years early?
All the speculative candidates who simply endorsed Romney in OTL could probably run, including Trump, Eric Cantor, Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki, Paul Ryan, John Thune, and more.
 
If no one else (Jeb!, Huckabee, Daniels, etc...) enters the race in the event that Romney doesn't run, Huntsman or Pawlenty would be the establishment candidate. If the big Republican donors can rally behind one of them, whoever that is will be the nominee and if Huntsman gets it, there's a good chance Obama loses in 2012. Pawlenty's chances would probably be the same or slightly lower than Romney's OTL. If the big establishment donors split, and someone like Santorum, Gingrich, or Perry get nominated, Obama practically cruses to a second term.
 
If no one else (Jeb!, Huckabee, Daniels, etc...) enters the race in the event that Romney doesn't run, Huntsman or Pawlenty would be the establishment candidate. If the big Republican donors can rally behind one of them, whoever that is will be the nominee and if Huntsman gets it, there's a good chance Obama loses in 2012. Pawlenty's chances would probably be the same or slightly lower than Romney's OTL. If the big establishment donors split, and someone like Santorum, Gingrich, or Perry get nominated, Obama practically cruses to a second term.

Huntsman would never win the nomination- someone who had literally just come back from being Obama's ambassador would never pass muster with the base, and he proved to be a pretty weak campaigner in the OTL primary. Even OTL a lot of GOP establishment people seriously courted Christie, and without Romney he might take the plunge. Or we get a Trump run four years earlier.
 
Huntsman is too moderate for the nomination and Tim Pawlenty is too dull to fare well. The best pick for party leadership in the 2012 field would be Rick Perry.

Perry would be painted as a return to George W Bush and he had the issue that he was on pain killers for back problems during the campaign.

Perry would probably be much softer on immigration than Romney and excite the base more. He was a leader on prison reform and criminal justice reform too (see here).

Perry probably does better in Nevada and Colorado over Romney. He's just a better fit for southwestern states.

The issue of Romney's Mormonism wouldn't happen with Perry either. I think Romney's Mormonism hurt him with evangelical Christians. Between this and latinos, that hurt Romney in Florida.

However, Perry not being as tough on trade or immigration probably hurts him in the midwest where such things are popular.

Get him a good running mate (I'm thinking Pawlenty, Portman, or Christie) and I could see him doing well.

If Perry makes Criminal Justice reform a big issue in an effort to outflank Obama, Christie is a strong running mate due to his being a former prosecutor. He had approvals around 50% in pre-Sandy too.
 
Romney not running creates a fairly big vacuum; a plausible POD is him winning the nomination in '08 instead. (Which is fairly plausible; the Obama-Clinton primary completely overshadowed how winding the Republican race was.)

Regardless, without Romney, expect a fairly different field. IRL there was enough discontent with the field for GOP bigwigs to try drafting Christie (then at his political prime), Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and Paul Ryan into running. If the field really were just Pawlenty and Perry as the only "establishment" contenders, one of them might have pulled the trigger.

Beyond that, several others who considered running but backed out will run, such as Haley Barbour and Mike Huckabee. I could well see John Thune making a bid and becoming the "Party Decides" choice.
 

Japhy

Banned
Daniels I think becomes the establishment pick and the winner of the nomination. Jeb! Might try for it but I don't see it being a likely option.

Trump would definitely run at that point, it certainly seems that he wanted to but I don't see him being able to dominate the GOP the way he did in 2016. There was a lot of anger in 2016 after that Party right had been forced to accept McCain and Romney and the failure of W. That wouldn't be there and the Tea Party was a far less coherent thing in 2012 that could be seized by Bannon. 2012's alternates for the 2016 GOP platform are likely to also be more potent in shooting some of his divisive but very successful comments down.
 
Romney crowded out a lot of people when he decided to run because he crowded out the fundraising networks needed to run a serious campaign not dependent on small donations (which encourage extremism).

The election was Obama's to lose ultimately because the US economy performed well enough starting in Q2 2012 that him losing was going to require an unusual course of events. That, combined with Romney's inability or unwillingness to do anything about being portrayed as a real life Mr. Burns crushed his ability to win in the Midwest (although he came a lot closer than perhaps he should have been expected to due to a late surge and an embrace of immigration restrictionism).

What it probably does is push either a Chris Christie or Marco Rubio campaign a lot sooner (Rubio would be a fringe who would drop out early, Christie could probably win the nomination), or perhaps, you would see someone slide into the Romney role, but fail, with the attempt being made by Jeb Bush or John McCain to hoover up all of that big money, and then be rejected in the primary. This would lead to either total chaos with Ron Paul entering the convention with the most delegates but no way to win because he's a lunatic hated by everyone else, or someone like Rick Perry or Rick Santorum win, but have little chance of winning the election.

Of the two, Santorum would do much better because he actually could have won a few more Midwestern states than Romney (he was running a Pat Buchanan/Trump lite campaign on the economy) but ultimately he would lose purple states decisively everywhere else. Perry would be exposed quickly as in over his head.
 
Daniels I think becomes the establishment pick and the winner of the nomination. Jeb! Might try for it but I don't see it being a likely option.

Trump would definitely run at that point, it certainly seems that he wanted to but I don't see him being able to dominate the GOP the way he did in 2016. There was a lot of anger in 2016 after that Party right had been forced to accept McCain and Romney and the failure of W. That wouldn't be there and the Tea Party was a far less coherent thing in 2012 that could be seized by Bannon. 2012's alternates for the 2016 GOP platform are likely to also be more potent in shooting some of his divisive but very successful comments down.
Republican Primaries are defined by the issues of the years before. McCain's support for the surge won him the primary in 2008 when others wanted to cut and run. Romney's business experience was a benefit for him during 2012 in the aftermath of the OWS protests and the 2011 tax increases. The 2014 child migration crisis, the resurgence of international terror, and executive amnesty, gave Trump a wedge issue on which he could not be beaten or outflanked in 2016.
 
Daniels I think becomes the establishment pick and the winner of the nomination. Jeb! Might try for it but I don't see it being a likely option.

Trump would definitely run at that point, it certainly seems that he wanted to but I don't see him being able to dominate the GOP the way he did in 2016. There was a lot of anger in 2016 after that Party right had been forced to accept McCain and Romney and the failure of W. That wouldn't be there and the Tea Party was a far less coherent thing in 2012 that could be seized by Bannon. 2012's alternates for the 2016 GOP platform are likely to also be more potent in shooting some of his divisive but very successful comments down.

Possibly, though Daniels was IRL really reluctant to run, and his wife and kids were completely opposed. I'm not sure even in this scenario that he bends. The thing is, modern presidential races are extraordinarily grueling and demanding. Unless you really seriously want it, it's hard to do it.

One reason I mentioned John Thune is he is someone who looked seriously at running in 2012 and would have had substantial donor support but opted not to. Without Romney in the race, Thune probably makes a serious bid. And if it were a similar field as OTL, with Pawlenty and Perry the only other real mainstream/establishment possibilities, Thune might've been stronger.
 
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A Christie-Portman ticket would be very very dangerous for President Obama.

Christie had approvals in the 50s Pre-Sandy and that'd help him in Philadelphia Suburbs. Portman is a popular Senator (the man won by 20 points in 2016!) and that might translate into more advantage in neighboring Pennsylvania.

Flip Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida and you've got President Christie.
 

Edward IX

Banned
You keep Romney out by Anne either dying or suffering worse MS. That opens it up a lot. I think that the one guy who could have beat Obama and this was why he was so popular was Christie. Someone above said Portman as VP, and that works well. I imagine Christie is walking around like Macbeth today asking himself WHY? 2012 was Christie's time.
 
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