January 30, 2015 – Three strikes and your out is the message Mitt Romney put out today when he announced that he would abandon a third run for the White House in 2016.

Romney, who served as Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, sought the Republican Party nomination in 2008 and then won it in 2012. In the November general election Romney was defeated by President Barack Obama.

Essentially running for president for over the past ten years when he first became a Governor, Romney suffered a key defection to his third White House bid when a key Iowa staffer defected to the Jeb Bush camp earlier in the week.

The Romney camp as a rationale for a third presidential campaign would say that it took Ronald Reagan three tries  to win the White House. The reality is that Romney is probably closer to the unsuccessful presidential campaigns of  Hubert Humphrey than Reagan. In 1960 Humphrey lost the nomination to John F. Kennedy as Romney lost the nomination to John McCain in 2008. In 1968 Humphrey won the Democratic nomination, but lost the general election to Richard Nixon, as Romney lost the 2012 election to Obama.

In 1972, Humphrey mounted a third presidential campaign but lost to eventual Democratic Party nominee George McGovern. While Romney didn’t make it in a third attempt to the actual voting as Humphrey did, he essentially lost the underground presidential primary where candidates compete behind the scene for staff and financial donors.

Romney if he had continued in the race would have complicated the Republican party’s message that probable Democratic party nominee Hillary Clinton is yesterday news, something that could have been applied to Romney considering this was his third race.

Romney’s decision is probably good news to the Jeb Bush campaign as they both appealed to the same wing of the party. Should money people and staffers now begin a steady movement toward Bush that’s probably bad news for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.