Don’t believe Mitt Romney’s non-denial about whether he wants to run for president one more time.

The 2012 Republican presidential nominee told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace that “I am not running. I have no plans to run.”

OK, Mitt. That ain’t one of those Shermanesque statements, you know, where you’re supposed to say “If nominated I won’t run; if elected, I won’t serve.”

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2014/09/romney-195006.html?hp=r6

Mitt says he’d be a better president than Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrats’ presumed frontrunner for the 2016 nomination. He also says he’d do better than the man who beat him in ’12, President Barack Obama.

Mitt told Wallace that his time had “come and gone.”

Hey, doggone it, he still hasn’t said he won’t run under any circumstances.

These non-statements about political futures are so frustrating. Politicians keep saying they “have no plans” to do something, then turn around and do what they said they have no plans to do.

The problem with that non-statement is the verb “have.” It’s a present-tense verb that doesn’t rule anything out, say, for tomorrow. Or the next day, or the day after that.

I remember in 1988 I asked the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen if he would consider running as Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis’s running mate on the Democratic Party presidential ticket. Sen. Bentsen said his plate was full serving as Texas’s senior U.S. senator. He never actually answered directly: yes or no. Turned out he was dodging. Dukakis selected him to run with him for the White House.

Bentsen had an out. He was able to run successfully for re-election to the Senate that year.

Is Mitt Romney really and truly not going to run for president in two years?

I’ve heard nothing from him that says “not just no, but hell no.”