Mitt Romney is running again. Well, maybe. My guess is the noise from the Romney camp is more about freezing potential donors to Jeb Bush. In the meantime, it serves as a trial balloon which will allow Mitt to assess whether or not another run would be worth pursuing.

My guess, though, is Romney wants to be president and figures there’s nothing to lose by running again. Sure, there’s the chance that he could lose, either in the general or in the primary. But that’s a chance he’s willing to take in order to potentially occupy the highest office in the land. Remember, there was a point just before the election where Mitt was convinced that he was going to be the next president. Right now, there’s still a chance of that happening.

Paul Ryan’s declining to run yesterday is also an indication that Romney is really serious about another bid, and Ryan doesn’t want to run against his old ticket-mate and friend. But Ryan’s decision is not a surprise; most expected him to stay in Congress as he is now Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which is apparently his childhood dream or something.

Meanwhile, Jeb Bush is running hard. The rumor is he wants to raise $100 million in the first quarter. That’s a ghastly amount of money and evidence that it might be necessary to return to the smoke-filled room of yore. While political junkies would beg to differ, it’s grotesque that the presidential election process lasts for almost two years. Let’s do like France does and compact the election cycle. The reforms to use the primary process to make nominations more democratic were well-intended but the result has been more negative than positive. A much longer election cycle, hundreds of millions of dollars, and a negligible decrease in the ability of party bigwigs to choose the nominee.

A reversion to the “old system” would not be more democratic, but it wouldn’t be substantially less democratic either. Political consultants and television stations might protest, but having national conventions truly mean something once again would be good for America. Maybe then the “national conversation” would become something other than who’s ahead in the meaningless primary polls.

John Wynne

John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.