Today’s local dailies feature very special Op-Ed ValPaks – columnist + editorial cartoonist – focused on the Last Temptation of Mitt.
Start with the Boston Globe’s Scot Lehigh, who provides this summary of Mitt Romney’s Sisyphean presidential history:
Romney has run twice now, and has twice failed to demonstrate convincing campaign competence or a genuine ability to connect. And though an occasional gaffe is inevitable in a long campaign, Romney spent an astonishing amount of time munching on his own shoe leather. Further, even in the GOP’s strange 2012 callithumpian parade of candidates, he had trouble closing the deal . . .
Even by political standards, Mitt’s malleability has left him looking opportunistic and inauthentic. And for good reason: He is.
Ouch.
Lehigh’s conclusion: “For Romney, this looks less like the road to redemption than the path to palookaville.”
Double ouch.
The Globe’s Dan Wasserman is slightly more graphic.
Coincidentally, the Boston Herald’s Jerry Holbert also goes the superhero route.
Uh-huh. On the facing page, though, syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg isn’t so sure.
You know how superhero flicks often have an extra scene after the credits to hint at what the sequel will be like? Well, this would be the perfect end to the movie “Romney 2012.”
The problem is that “Romney for president” is now an art house film thinking it’s a blockbuster franchise and that there’s a huge market for another sequel. There’s not.
So third time’s not the charm? Goldberg’s conclusion: “[T]he idea that a one-term Massachusetts governor, who hired Jonathan Gruber to help design his health-care plan, is just what the Republicans need to run against Hillary Clinton is odd, particularly when the GOP has a much more talented, and fresher, field than it did in 2012.”
In other words, don’t bet the Mittfecta.
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