Buzzfeed is reporting that failed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will use his speech at CPAC today, to apologize to the conservative movement. He just wants to say, he’s sorry.
Friends and former advisers of the failed Republican presidential candidate told BuzzFeed that Romney has come to CPAC as a good-faith effort to renew some measure of goodwill between himself and the conservative movement — many of whom blame him for their party’s current stagnant state.
“I don’t think the governor is concerned about creating a faction in the party; some sort of Romney bloc,” said Robert O’Brien, a longtime friend and adviser who stays in touch with the ex-candidate. “He really doesn’t have a personal political agenda, and he’s not trying to raise his profile.”
While many CPAC speakers — Sarah Palin, Herman Cain — come to the conference in pursuit of political celebrity, Romney’s friends say he has no such ambitions.
“I think he’s going to speak out on issues that are important to him because he cares about this country, as opposed to trying to advance some type of platform in the party,” O’Brien said, adding, “Frankly, I think he enjoys business more than politics.”
One source said Romney hadn’t even considered speaking at CPAC until organizers approached him personally. He accepted, sources said, to thank the conservative conference-goers who were present at every turn of his five-year bid for the presidency, and in hopes of warming the frigid relationship he has with the party’s base.
A person familiar with the speech said his remarks will be more personal in nature, invoking humor and some light self-deprecation, which the governor’s most loyal fans hope will endear him to conservatives.
