Is Mitt Romney running for president? Are Native Americans actually Jews?! Of course he is! He's always running for president. But Mittens is playing along with this game all the other candidates are doing, putting off announcing their run for as long as possible in the hope that, by the time the Republican electorate realizes all the candidates are boring and awful, one of them will have wrapped up the nomination. In order to start raising money, though, Romney will file some paperwork with the FEC this month. That doesn't mean he will have a "full-fledged campaign" going. He just needs to raise a whole lot of money, very quickly, for, uh, something.

There is no hard date set yet — or at least outside Romney backers haven't been informed of one yet — for either the initial filing of paperwork or an eventual actual declaration of candidacy. The campaign-in-waiting in Boston wants to be flexible about timing so as not to be locked into a day that could be overwhelmed by other news.

It'll be easy to get the American people excited to elect their charismatic new leader, this random rich milquetoast who once bought himself a governorship! As long as nothing interesting happens in the world at all between now and the time they go to the polls. Wait till they hear this funny new story about the time he almost caused the family dog to commit suicide! [Politico]