There was much speculation of Hillary Clinton hedging her bets and campaigning in a way that will allow her to save face enough to run in 2012, but not enough to help Obama actually win. I’m not sure that is really true, but today we’ve got some reason to suspect that Mitt Romney is trying to set himself as the go-to candidate in 2012 if McCain loses:
Good for him. To the degree that I had favorites in the Republican primaries, I did like Romney a lot. After all, he has a fairly effective record as being able to work with a legislature of the other party. No, he wasn’t a splendid moderate exactly, but he did ultimately care about getting some things done, just as Arnold (more moderate than Mitt) often does in California. I also happened to like Huckabee because he was an economic moderate, and naturally Ron Paul because Libertarians suck far less than Republicans. Now, I’m certainly glad we got McCain instead of Giuliani (ok, I might have hoped for Rudy because he might be easier to beat) because Giuliani is that much crazier, but McCain was far from my favorite Republican, which perhaps is good reason to put into question his Maverick credentials, since I’d be likely to support breaks with the Republican Party line.
Update: This video is from the primary campaign. So apparently Romney is not positioning himself for 2012. It still, however, remains very funny and could be used very effectively against McCain.
