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WAITING FOR MITT
Behind the governor’s procrastination
BY ADAM REILLY
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Why won’t Governor Mitt Romney declare whether he plans to seek re-election? One popular explanation — carefully cultivated by the Romney camp in recent weeks — is that the governor wants to get a few more things done, with health-care reform topping the list, before he makes himself a lame duck. Then again, maybe Romney isn’t actually procrastinating: after all, the governor said he’d announce his plans this fall — and as Romney’s spokeswoman Julie Teer helpfully noted a few days ago, fall actually runs through December 20. (It’s so easy to forget!) There’s a third possibility, however. Romney may not want to announce that he’s leaving after one term — thereby confirming that he’s seeking the Republican presidential nomination for 2008 — until the upcoming annual conference of the Republican Governors Association is over. Originally, the RGA’s 2005 confab — at the La Costa Resort & Spa in lovely Carlsbad, California — was supposed to take place from November 16 through November 18. But then the RGA rescheduled the event for November 30 through December 2. The RGA’s yearly elections are usually pretty straightforward: a new vice-chair is picked, and the outgoing vice-chair is elevated to the chair’s post. But if Romney — who served as RGA vice-chair this year, and could use the chairman’s job as a potent campaign platform throughout 2006 — makes his exit from Massachusetts official before he actually becomes the RGA’s new number one, there’s a chance, albeit a small one, that his fellow Republican governors might reconsider and give the chairmanship to someone else. Just like that, Romney could kiss loads of free PR goodbye. In other words, don’t give the governor too much credit. Whether he’s waiting for the RGA to make things official, trying to add a few more notches to his gubernatorial belt, or some combination of the two, one thing is certain: as always, Romney is his own first priority.
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