In "Mitt Quits. Again. Probably." the NYT's resident satirist, Gail Collins, acutely assesses the man: "Romney has mutated a lot in the time we’ve known him, but the one clear, shining quality that never wavers is his complete inability to make a strong, clear statement."
The latest iteration of Mitt's marvelous circumlocutory powers is of course his instantly famous "That seems unlikely," when asked, by his own imagination, if he would ever change his mind — "Again." — not to run. So Mitt's completely out, although he's not entirely out. Perhaps he's only plotting a 2020 run against President Clinton, or a 2024 run against Chelsea, or maybe he's laying the groundwork to tackle Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky in 2052; or maybe, just maybe he'll be back yet, this year or next.
This, I know, is the thinnest of pixie-dusted reeds upon which I have ever seized. Like Fredo Corleone, Mitt broke my heart yesterday with his sudden betrayal of appearances and faithless disengagement from the field. But unlike Michael, I'm willing to forgive. I need, his party needs, yea no less than the nation needs Capo Romney back in the game; for without him, what have we but a breathtakingly stale, mostly untested and pitiably chaotic crop of GOP mobsters?
Fredo "the Pol" Romney, you see, operated on a firm, Al Frankenlike philosophical foundation: He was smart enough, he was good enough, and gosh darnit he deserved it. He was clueless from there on out, but at least in Fredo R. we saw an almost Nietzschean will to power, based merely on limitless ego, a Gottian readiness to screw the Everyman, and a consequent few hundred million dollars.
Is this not the personalized core of the fetid, pseudoconservative, gangster-swarming Republican Party? Does some lowlife underboss like Ted Cruz or passed-over wannabe like Bu… or sleepy sociopath like (gasp!) Scott Walker think he can really fill the Louis Vuitton shoes of visionary Fredo "the Pol" Romney?
I think not. And Romney, as he articulated in his garbled confession yesterday, knows that is sure as hell not the case. So, to mix cinematic metaphors, Mitt … Mitt … Come back!