Does Mitt Romney have a political life after losing the presidency? (+video)

Rebuilding your political life after a failed presidential bid is tough under any circumstances – especially so if you don’t have, say, a seat in the US Senate or the governor’s office to go back to, as John McCain, John Kerry, and Michael Dukakis did.

It can take months – years – to get something new going, something befitting the ambition and ego of one who thought he should be president. Just ask Jimmy Carter or Al Gore or George H.W. Bush.

Mitt Romney is finding this out.

The Republican presidential standard-bearer last year not only has to deal with personal political failure after twice shooting for the White House. He’s also the symbol of the GOP’s major problem these days: the failure to connect with an electorate that is becoming younger and more diverse than its membership – certainly more moderate than the party’s leadership.

Mr. Romney may have had a good personal story to tell – an attractive family, a life of quiet good works tied to his Mormon faith – but it came too late in the presidential campaign. Plus, there was no way he could dispel his image as a really, really rich white guy who had trouble relating to working families and less-fortunate Americans – the “47 percent” he derided when talking to campaign donors.

For the record, at least, few Republicans or conservative leaders speak unkindly of Romney these days.

“Certainly he gave a lot for the cause," Tim Phillips, president of the national conservative group Americans for Prosperity, told The Associated Press. "But most of the movement is wanting to look forward. They want to look forward to the next generation of leaders."

"We need as many voices for conservative reform and leadership as possible," said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, among those Republicans thought to be weighing a 2016 presidential bid. "I welcome Governor Romney and anybody else who will help to make that message and help to take that fight."

Whether or not that happens, Romney, after four months spent recuperating emotionally at the family’s beach home in La Jolla, Calif., has begun to reemerge in public view.

1 | 2

Next