Tagg Romney: Mitt 'had no desire' to run for president

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In a surprisingly candid new interview, Mitt Romney’s oldest son Tagg revealed that this father “had no desire” to run for president in 2012.

“If he could have found someone else to take his place … he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn’t love the attention,” Tagg told the Boston Globe in a behind-the-scenes look at the loss of the Romney 2012 campaign.

Despite aggressively running arguably the most costly campaign in American history, Tagg Romney claims that his father “wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life.”

Tagg Romney was a prominent advisor of his dad’s 2012 campaign, and he’d been at his father’s side during his successful run for Massachusetts governor and failed presidential effort in 2008. According to reports, it was Mitt’s poor showing in ’08 that nearly convinced him not to run again.

Romney’s eldest son has insisted that he would not want to take part in politics himself.

“I’d be really surprised if I did [run for office]. It’s a really horrible process, and honestly I just don’t want to go through it,” he told the New York Times in late October.

This isn’t the first time Tagg has been perhaps a little too candid about the general election fight.

Tagg Romney made headlines late in the presidential race when he told reporters he’d wanted to “take a swing” at President Barack Obama after his heated prime-time presidential debate with Mitt Romney this fall.