The Political Garbage Chute obtained this op-ed from an anonymous source semi-close to someone sort of close to someone who kind of knows where Mitt Romney buys his underwear in La Jolla, CA. What follows is the op-ed, allegedly penned by Mr. Romney himself, and intended to be sent to The Wall Street Journal, The National Review, and the Illinois League for the Advancement of the Pigment Bereft, as an explanation of sorts from Romney and his camp as to why he initially thought about, but then decided against running in 2016.

Why I’m Not Running for President in 2016 After All

by Mitt Romney

My fellow Americans — after running my “long and hard thinking” programs through my central processing unit, passing those thought algorithms through the Mitt-u-Tron 5000 political career analyzer machine and checking my bank accounts to confirm it, I am indeed filthy rich. I am so rich that I could afford to put you and your entire family line going back for time immemorial and forward into the future until the Earth is swallowed up by the Sun’s expansion and still have more than enough money for my entire family to live for as many generations. In fact, I am so rich that I realized I don’t need to be president to shape the world as I’d like it to be.

I just need to buy the right politician who will do it for me.

By “buy” of course I mean “donate” to their campaign using my massive amounts of wealth — wealth that’s so great there are untold millions if not billions of dollars stashed in accounts that you and your precious government (that I tried to become the de facto leader of a few years ago) — as an expression of my free speech, of course. It hit me the other day as I was choosing which luxury vehicle to have summoned to me via the elevator system in my garage that as a crazy rich human being that’s also a Republican, I already have at least half the government in my back pocket, and if I give enough lip service to quasi-progressive ideals, I can probably convince at least some of the other half to forsake their principles for some of my sweet, sweet moolah.

It hit me like a two-ton sack of gold the other morning — why buy the cow when I can donate to the farm and get free milk paid for by the middle class? And the best part? I’ve got a bunch of people convinced that I’m actually looking out for them by looking out for my fellow rich friends. Isn’t that amazing? Our tax code has been on its hind-quarters for over almost three decades and in that time the middle class has atrophied more and more, and we’ve still got a lot of people convinced it’s the working mom trying to support her four kids that has to take a little welfare to feed them that’s the problem, and not the super-rich people kvetching about paying an extra cent or three in taxes per dollar.

Basically, when I thought about it, I figured out that I didn’t need to become the most powerful man in the free world; I already was one. I am a rich, older, white, conservative male. I have an entire political party at my beck and call already. Anyone they put up as their nominee that somehow actually wins the election will do what I want to do anyway, because I’m rich, you see?

Finally, the clouds parted on my depression over not being president when I realized that I was already more powerful than the president. I probably have enough money in offshore accounts to live comfortably for the rest of my life, which makes me the exact kind of person that fiscal conservatives call patriots. To people who think of taxes as theft and not a mutually shared burden in making the world a better place, I’m actually the guy who needs defending from attacks, not the person born into poverty without a ladder out of it. And I have the power to literally lift people out of poverty with a stroke of check-writing hand, which makes me more powerful than Obama, or any other person who will ever occupy the Oval Office.

So, thanks but no thanks America. I’m going to just go back to doing what I do best — being rich and looking out for people who need the most help in life. Other rich people. God Bless you all, and by God I mean “my money” and by “bless you all” I mean “Stay the fuck out of it, you dirty hippie socialists!”