Neil Cavuto conducted a 12-minute interview with Ann Romney this week. Most of the time was taken up with Cavuto “just asking” about a possible 2016 candidacy for Mitt Romney.
In his introduction, Cavuto said, “Maybe, maybe, maybe if things had gone differently for Mitt Romney back then, would things be different for America, maybe the world right now? …If what Ann Romney just told me is right, her husband would have hit the ground running.”
Ann Romney repeatedly told Cavuto that Mitt is not interested in running. But Cavuto didn’t want to take no for an answer: “When he’s looking at 2016 and the landscape and he says he’s not interested - I’m thinking of Anthony Scaramuchi, of course, who is now a contributor on Fox Business… He was saying, as a former Romney finance co-chair, ‘I think he’s going to do it. … He’d be the number one draft pick. He’d certainly be mine.’”
Ann Romney said, “We like Anthony” but, she reiterated, “Mitt and I at this point are not making plans.” Which, of course, was not a flat-out “not happening.”
So Cavuto prodded a bit more: “When you say ‘not making plans,’ things have a way of making plans for you. One scenario out there, Mrs. Romney, is that Jeb Bush doesn’t run after all, and your husband has sized up the landscape, as have a lot of his supporters past and present, and said you have the name recognition, you have the Reagan example of the third time was the charm for him, and that has been done before and that would be appealing.”
Ann Romney replied, “I think Jeb probably will end up running, myself.”
“I don’t want to belabor the point, Mrs. Romney,” Cavuto insisted, “but I do want to touch on the prospective camp that’s out there, the field of candidates that are out there. They don’t jazz people and when polls have been done in key early states – for example, Iowa – your husband right now on a list of all those big names including Chris Christie and Rand Paul, Cruz, on and on - wins by a country mile. He garners almost half the poll vote. ...Do you guys talk about it and say ‘Gee?’”
“We do just see them and we’re like, 'Wow,'” Romney said. “…I do think that people recognize that Mitt was right. …It does make you feel good but it still doesn’t change our mind as to where we’re going.”
“Which is not going for a presidential run?” Cavuto asked.
“At this point, Neil, we have no plans,” Romney said.
Watch Cavuto all but beg, below, from the September 23 Your World.