From the right wing Weekly Standard:
Dear, Governor Romney: You have served your nation admirably for many years and by any ordinary standard are entitled to a happy retirement. But these are extraordinary times, and your nation still has need of your service. I respectfully implore you to run for president as an independent candidate in 2016.
Donald Trump is a sympathizer with the nativist “alt-right,” a twisted and angry ideology that views the world through a racialist lens. Worse, his intemperance knows no bounds, making him liable to lash out at any (real or perceived) rivals. These qualities combined in an awful spectacle this week when he claimed that the judge in the Trump University case was biased—simply because he is of Mexican descent.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is running as the heir to the Obama administration, which has shredded our constitutional system of checks and balances in its never-ending quest to favor Democratic client groups. Worse, she and her husband have personal problems as well, including a Nixonian paranoia of their “enemies” that has induced them to subvert the rule of law at many points through their careers.
Liberals accuse conservatives of racialized attacks against President Obama, but the truth is that her campaign in 2008 was the first to deal that card from the bottom of the deck. An independent candidate must already have a reputation for integrity with the voters, otherwise the slanders from Trump and Clinton may prove overwhelming.
Governor Romney, there is nobody else but you who is capable of such a bid. It is a credit to your modesty and sense of decency that you demurred and instead tried persuade others to run. But there really is nobody else. General James Mattis, Senators Ben Sasse and Tom Coburn, and David French are all estimable men, but the enormity of the task was too great for them to accept.
Only you possess the experience, the political network, the good health, and the time to dedicate to this great endeavor. Only you have the standing with the voters to endure the assaults of Trump and Clinton.
The editor of the Weekly Standard is Bill Kristol.