Romney insults voters one last time
By Stephen Stromberg January 30 at 12:20 PM
The country let out a collective “thank God” — or, in Utah, a “thank gosh” — on Friday when Mitt Romney said he would not run for president a third time. He went out as he went in — a decent man and an accomplished manager who serially insults voters.
As Romney floated potential campaign messages over the past few weeks, it became clear that yet another Romney run would have been driven by yet another Romney reinvention. Among other things, a man who four three years ago literally said on national television that he was “not concerned about the very poor” was going to run as a man who cares deeply about poverty. What else do you expect from a politician who implemented an Obamacare-like universal health-care plan and favored strong climate change policy as governor of Massachusetts — and then ran an uncreatively shrill 2012 campaign opposed to both ideas?
The case for Romney was always premised on the notion that, despite his desperate attempts to reflect the views of 50 percent-plus-one voters back at them, he would quit this nonsense in the Oval Office, applying his intelligence and businesslike competence rather than behaving like an ideologue or governing by focus group. Naturally, GOP ideologues didn’t trust him. But neither did a lot of other people who had reason to wonder if, like his campaigns, his presidency would have been driven by constant and brazen political calculation.
Perhaps Romney felt as though his developing 2016 message was more authentically Mitt. But he had already strained the credulity of all but the most devoted Romneyites. He should have taken the goodwill he generated after his unsuccessful 2012 run and become a GOP elder statesman. Instead, he had to inflame the political world one last time over the past few weeks with characteristically awkward hints of another run. Whether he was serious about performing another political shape-shift or he simply wanted to flex his ego, the result is the same: He reminded Americans of why he was a flawed candidate.
That’s a shame. Romney is an otherwise accomplished man and father who was at times unfairly savaged during the 2012 campaign. But, as ever, his own worst enemy is himself.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/01/30/romney-insults-voters-one-last-time/
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Romney was NOT a "decent man and an accomplished manager." 
Love,
Brigid
Actually I have, for over a decade, thought of him as an overly pampered liar and a shill who would sell his own mother to get moar. Aside form the fact that he's just a plain old POS asshole who treats anyone outside of his clan like he owns them.
"But, as ever, his own worst enemy is himself"
