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After I wrote this piece arguing that it made little sense for Mitt Romney to run for president a third time in 2016, I got lots and lots of tweets like this one:

Clinton has, after all, been around national politics longer than Romney. And she is just as much a throwback as he would be if he ran again. I get it. I just don't agree with it. (Cue: Well, that's because you are a Democrat and rooting for her to win. Um, no.) Here's why a second Clinton bid in 2016 makes more sense than a third Romney bid would.

1. It would be her second, not third, run for president. The more apt comparison for Clinton 2016 is Romney 2012. In both cases, they were seen as the runner-up to the eventual nominee in their party's most recent competitive primary. And there's a clear logic in coming in second and then running again to try and come in first. It's the logic that installed Romney as the favorite in 2012, a position he never relinquished. Making a return bid also allows a candidate Clinton in this case to make the "I did it once and learned what to do and what not to do" argument. Running for a third time in three straight elections, having lost twice before, makes it a lot harder to make that argument.

2. She's spent sixyears doing other things. Clinton went from her 2008 loss to serving for four years as the country's leading diplomat. That allows her to present herself as something different and new-ish to voters. She can draw rhetorically and from a policy perspective on what she's done since the last time she ran for president; "Representing the U.S. on the world stage, I learned that ... " is a sentence you can see Clinton using and using effectively as she re-pitches herself to voters. Romney, on the other hand, is just over two years removed from losing in 2012, and hasn't taken a job (or a position on a major issue) that would allow him to make the I'm-something-new-and-different argument easily. He's essentially the same person he was when he lost in 2012; his argument is, in a nutshell: "I came close last time and I was right about lots of things." Sure. But, neither of those things re-invent him in any way and his loss in 2012 suggests that some level of reinvention would be necessary if he wants to run and win in 2016.

3. She has no primary challenge. Clinton is running (or will be running) in as close to an empty primary field as any non-incumbent president could hope for in 2016. She is the de facto nominee before she has even said the words "I'm running." Romney, on the other hand, would face a crowded and talented field that is inarguably deeper and better than the one he bested in 2012. If Romney had a path even close to as (seemingly) easy as Clinton's, his third-time candidacy would make a whole lot more sense.

That word "sense" is the one that I and the Republicans I talk to not directly linked to Romney keep coming back to when talking about his potential 2016 candidacy. Typically in winning campaigns presidential or otherwise there's a logic behind the bid that not only makes sense to the candidate and his or inner circle but also to voters. Whether that's a rerun after coming in second (the preferred route to the nomination of most recent Republican nominees) or the need to have a complete break from the "old" ways of doing things in politics (Barack Obama's "hope" and "change" in 2008), there'susuallya sound logic to the candidacy.

Campaigns without an obvious logic to them Ted Kennedy's primary challenge to President Jimmy Carter in 1980 being the shining example tend not to work out so well. And the logic of Clinton's 2016 candidacy seems to be there. For Romney, not so much.

Chris Cillizza writes The Fix, a politics blog for the Washington Post. He also covers the White House.

Originally posted here:
The Fix: No, Hillary Clinton Mitt Romney when it comes to 2016