On Nov. 4, when Americans go to the polls to elect a new president, a surprising beneficiary may be off the ballot: Mitt Romney. With polls in key states forecasting a comfortable victory by Sen. Barack Obama and fellow Democrats, Republicans may find themselves booted out of the White House, shoved further into the minority in Congress and marginalized in the powerhouse of Washington. If Sen. John McCain loses next Tuesday, Romney could be well positioned to rise as a leader of the Republican Party to guide conservatives through a few years in the political wilderness and emerge as a favorite for the GOP presidential nomination come 2012. A Newsweek poll out this past weekend found Romney leading among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters for the GOP nomination next time around. In that national survey, Romney bested GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and former presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee. "All the Republicans who were pushed aside, I think, both for vice presidential selection and in the primaries, will look a lot better if this is a Democratic landslide," says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. "Republicans will be looking for people who are not Palin, who are not McCain in the next election cycle, and I think (Romney) can be repackaged in effective ways as a different kind of Republican: one who is good with the economy, one who has executive experience, one who doesn't play to the most extreme elements of the party." Romney told reporters at a breakfast for Utah Republicans during their party's national convention that he wasn't interested in a 2012 run. But since dropping out of the 2008 race in February, Romney has stayed in the media spotlight and has crisscrossed the nation to help boost McCain and down-ticket Republicans running for Congress or local races. He launched a political-action committee, the Free and Strong America PAC, to raise money and distribute it to GOP contenders in tough races. And his supporters are casting Romney -- who oversaw Salt Lake City's successful 2002 Winter Olympics -- as someone who, if McCain fails to grab the White House this year, could become a signature Republican figure and return in a few years to take on a President Obama. "He's known for kind of coming in and taking a challenge, taking a crisis and turning it around, and I think that's something we may be facing at least three months from now if not four years from now," says Justin Hart, one of the co-founders of the site MymanMitt.com, who supports McCain now but is eyeing Romney for a future bid. Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, says Romney's "only ambition" right now is working to get Republicans elected this year. "He's been raising money for candidates and campaigning in their districts," Fehrnstrom says. "Some of these people supported Mitt Romney in his campaign for president, and he's returning the favor. Others are good Republicans who find themselves in challenging races." As for the future, Fehrnstrom says, Romney plans to stay active "as a leader of the party" and continue to talk about the three prongs of his conservative views: a strong economy, strong families and a strong military. With a few years until the start of the 2012 chase, Romney could prep himself for another bid by burnishing his conservative credentials and working to ease fears that some voters have over his Mormon faith. Romney this year faced an electorate uneasy about his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which some evangelical Christian groups view as heretical or cultic. But political pundits say the more exposure Romney has with Americans, the more accepting they might be of his faith. Romney already touts a hefty conservative resume, although adding a few more years in the trenches could help him make the argument that he is the candidate of the right. E-mail Thomas Burr at tburr(at)sltrib.com(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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