Mitt Romney 2016: 4 Steps To The GOP Nomination, Already In Progress

Mitt Romney 2016 plans appear to be well underway after the 2012 Republican nominee and failed candidate for president launched a scathing indictment of current frontrunner Donald Trump’s history.

Romney for President hopefuls got a taste of what they can expect over the next few months as the former Massachusetts governor positions himself as the top pick in a brokered convention.

What first seemed improbable now seems wholly likely, and here are the four steps that he’s taking to make sure Mitt Romney 2016 is his shot at redemption from four years ago.

1. Questioning ‘the Donald’s’ tax returns.

The former governor actually launched his Mitt Romney 2016 campaign more than a week ago when he called out Trump on Twitter for not having released his tax returns.

Romney speculated that the reason Trump hasn’t done so is that the returns might reveal he isn’t worth as much as he lets on, or that he doesn’t give to veterans’ groups as much as he says that he does.

2. Thursday’s speech.

Mitt reiterated many of his Twitter attacks in today’s speech, and also tried to strike a more presidential tone with his audience.

He gave the speech at the University of Utah to a decidedly anti-Trump crowd and tried to get out ahead of Trump by anticipating insulting responses while drawing a sharp contrast between the Donald and the tenets of conservatism.

In his comments, he also tried to instill hope for America through decency and values, what many have called a “presidential” sounding speech, and he encouraged Republican voters to rally around the candidate in each state that they believed had the best chance of winning other than Donald Trump.

As CNN notes, his reason for encouraging this is to keep Trump from winning the 1,237 delegates he needs to secure the nomination outright. If that happens, then the party could pick a candidate of their choosing at the Republican National Convention.

“If the other candidates can find common ground, I believe we can nominate a person who can win the general election and who will represent the values and policies of conservatism,” Romney said.

Mitt’s comments here in no way indicate that candidate had to be one of the current people running, which has led pundits to anticipate that a Mitt Romney 2016 campaign isn’t off the table, as he’s gone on record of saying it was multiple times since his loss to President Barack Obama in 2012.

3. Romney’s sources are already talking about House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan.

CNN, quoting unnamed sources within the Romney camp, admitted there was a plan afoot to “lock the convention,” and that “implicit in Romney’s request to his team to explore the possibility of a convention fight is his willingness to step in and carry the party’s banner into the fall general election as the Republican nominee.”

From there, the CNN report states that “Another name these sources mentioned was House Speaker Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate in 2012.”

The fact the two have run for president and vice president together already indicates that Mitt Romney 2016 would be a rehashed ticket, this time with the hopeful exception of winning.

4. Mitt Romney is encouraging candidates and GOP officials to keep hitting Trump on taxes and the unreleased New York Times audio.

The thinking here, according to sources in Mitt’s camp, is that by keeping up the pressure on Trump to release his tax papers and continually hitting him on the “secret” off-the-record portion of the New York Times recording that only Trump can release to the public, they can instill enough doubt in voters to follow Mitt’s prescription of locking the convention at the polls.

If that happens, Mitt Romney 2016 is likely to be the official banner against Hillary Clinton in November.

But what do you think, readers? Would you vote for a Mitt Romney 2016 bid over Trump and Clinton? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image via Flickr Creative Commons / davelawrence8]