Even Meghan McCain Thinks Romney Should Quit

While Mitt Romney has yet to make an official announcement of his third presidential bid, it's likely to come any day now — he's already indicated to donors and party leaders that he's considering it. But Romney already has some high-profile detractors, and they have been rather scathing in their criticism of the former Massachusetts governor as a presidential nominee. On Tuesday, yet another prominent personality has come out against it. The daughter of Sen. John McCain, Meghan McCain, implored Romney not to run for president for his family's sake, in a striking Washington Post Op-Ed detailing the toll that a presidential nominee's campaign takes on his — or, as soon as Hillary gives the word, her — family.

First writing that children whose parents run for president belong to a small, albeit highly unusual clique, McCain then claimed that those who have witnessed a parent run — and lose — multiple times, are worse off, in the same breath warning of the hardship it would cause to the Romney family. She wrote:

Those of us who’ve been through it multiple times, who’ve watched our parents be rejected by the American public more than once? We make up a weird, lonely island of political misfit toys. I’m on it. So are the Romneys. And when I think about what they might go through again, if their father runs a third time, I shudder.

McCain asserted that while she likes Romney and his family — in 2012, she said on MSNBC that Romney's sons were "just perfect and beautiful" while also saying she'd slit her wrists if her father endorsed the "moron" Rick Santorum — her personal experience as the child of a twice-presidential candidate made it "inconceivable" that Romney would put his family through yet another campaign, especially after losing as the GOP's most recent nominee.

The politically outspoken host and author then recounted her father's second shot at presidency, when she thought, mistakenly, that at 22 she was more prepared — because, as with anything in politics, there will always be variables outside of one's control. The most distressing part of the ordeal, she wrote, was the incredibly public concede of defeat on election night when Obama was declared winner of the presidency.

McCain wrote:

It all feels terribly personal. It is not just a rejection of your personal beliefs on the direction of your country that your parent personifies, it is a rejection of your entire family unit. You, your brothers, your sisters, the way you look, act and the entirety of how your family is made up is rejected in place of something else deemed all together better and more fitting to the American public. The days and weeks that follow felt like the aftermath of complete and total heartbreak.

While McCain doesn't quite carry the same clout as Rupert Murdoch — who called Romney a "terrible candidate" — or the GOP leaders who are highly distrustful of a third Romney bid, she is somewhat of a political personality as a columnist at The Daily Beast and a former MSNBC political analyst. Though surely Romney will take his family into account in his decision, perhaps McCain's revealing, deeply personal editorial might make him think twice.

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