Former GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole is the latest Republican to put his hopes on Mitt Romney making a bid for the White House in 2016.
According to
CNN, the former Senate majority leader, who ran for president in 1996, made his wishes clear when
he introduced Romney at a campaign rally in Kansas on behalf of embattled Sen. Pat Roberts on Monday.
"I want him to run again," the 91-year-old Dole said.
Romney laughed off the comment.
"You never know what a 90-year-old is going to say, do you?" he said. "I'll tell ya."
Earlier this month, speculation mounted that Romney might make another
presidential bid after a visit to Iowa to campaign on behalf of GOP Senate candidate Joni Ernst.
According to
The Washington Post, confidants have said they think Romney is grappling with whether he would take up the challenge should the party draft him, while multiple GOP donors have pleaded with him to throw his hat into the ring.
Romney and his wife Ann have tried to stamp out speculation that he will make a bid, repeatedly saying he is not considering it.
"I'm not running and I'm not planning on running. I've got nothing to add to that story," he told supporters earlier this month while on the
campaign trail in Georgia.
In two separate interviews earlier this month,
Ann Romney also categorically ruled out a possible run.
Meanwhile, she waded into a
melee in South Carolina after Democrat Vincent Sheheen, who is campaigning against GOP Gov. Nikki Haley, referred in an alleged verbal slip to Haley as a "whore."
"When I first heard about it, it hit me right in my gut," Ann Romney told CNN. "My nerve endings went haywire. It's so upsetting when you know someone can say something like that about a woman, and not have any kind of reaction. It's so unacceptable. Nikki is a great girl and has been a great governor."
Sheheen was making a speech attacking Haley's education record when he told a crowd, "We are going to escort whore out the door."
He immediately corrected himself saying, "We're going to escort her out the door." But an audience member heard the comment and began applauding, prompting Sheheen to laugh with the crowd.
Sheheen later apologized, according to CNN.
"If anybody heard, and certainly my words were garbled … I apologize because I don't want to send that message to anybody."
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