Mittens: The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth

I’m pretty much where my fellow Mittens skeptic Jon Chait is. I still don’t think my analysis of Romney’s fundamental vulnerabilities was wrong; it’s still amazing that someone who lost a race against zero serious orthodox conservatives is poised to win a race with a more conservative primary electorate while in the interim his signature public policy has become absolutely toxic to said electorate.

But there’s no way around it; Mittens has to be considered the overwhelming favorite, Matt (and Rob) were right and I was wrong. Romney at least had a floor created by his basic political competence. Rick Perry would be running away with it if his debate performances could rise above “prepared exclusively by combining heroin and Tylenol PM” and he hadn’t written a book less than a year ago in which he said the quiet parts loud, but fortunately for Romney he seems unable to clear this low bar. I still think Romney would get crushed by a halfway decent orthodox conservative candidate, but it seems increasingly clear that this is irrelevant.