Compare Romney here to Hillary last week. Or Obama’s closer to Iowa. They’re all running as agents of “change,” and Mitt here makes a good case against Washington insiders, implicitly McCain and Hillary, and doesn’t seem as scripted and stilted as Obama did. For a while I’ve thought that Romney would make a better president than he has been as a candidate, having the experience of turning things around as well as a broad executive experience generally but lacking the ability to connect and having a flip-flopping history that dents his credibility and opens him up to legitimate attacks. But he’s coming into his own as a candidate now.

On the other hand, at least in New Hampshire, McCain is coming into his own too, to the point that the Romney camp is reportedly dialing down the expectations there. Hillary did that shortly before Iowa, leading to speculation (speculation that turned out to be correct) that she’d seen internal polls showing her taking a beating.

By the way, that appears to be a steeple in the background in the Mitt video. Was it put there…intentionally? Let the steeple-chase begin…