One problem Romney has, which I was acutely aware of the other night, is that he comes off just a bit too effete. He is smart and thoughtful. But each time John McCain said something that was smirky or a direct lie, (the business about timetables), after trying to correct it, Mitt's natural inclination was to shoot a plaintive look at the questioners, as if to signal that he and they both knew that McCain was misbehaving.... This little bit of body language reinforced whatever it was that McCain's people meant recently when one of them was quoted saying, "Mitt Romney is the kind of guy that John McCain used to beat up at school." (That's a paraphrase.)

Mitt Romney may have achieved the distinction of becoming the most innocuously unlikable candidate since... I'm not sure when. The primaries have softened my view of him, though I still can't decide whether to vote for him or Dr. Ron Paul next Tuesday, since I think that's the strongest statement vote I could cast. Anyway!

Point is, Romney has been the butt of more of these kinds of lines than anybody else in the race. Huckabee was the first to land a body blow with his "reminds them of the guy who laid them off" line on Letterman. For a guy whose most evil acts to date have been to raise registry fees and push through a socialism-lite healthcare mandate in a state that might otherwise have backed the full-fat variety, it's a lot of hate.

The real problem with Mitt Romney is that while he's a good candidate in the abstract sense, his timing is simply all wrong. Had Romney succeeded Weld in '98 or sooner, George W. Bush probably would have retired to his ranch following two terms as governor of Texas. Those were the days when being associated with Wall Street was probably a net positive and people were looking for a comfortable consensus candidate who wouldn't raise or lower the temperature of the bath water too much.

My gut is that people today are looking for hot, or cold, but not lukewarm. McCain and Hillary are cold while Obama is hot. While fear of a recession ought to benefit the candidate who knows more about applied economics, financial engineers like Bain are increasingly seen as either a neutral or net negative actor, so Romney's resume haunts him as much as it helps. McCain, who evinces a certain disdain for any trade whose practitioners have soft hands, is much more suited to the present mood.

¶ 6:46 PM