Romney’s presidential bid, a fascinating commentary on wealth in politics, suggests various ways in which a financial advantage can curdle into something more complicated, a tactical blessing turned optical curse…

But during the 2010 election cycle, one rich candidate after another — including would-be senators Carly Fiorina in California, Linda McMahon in Connecticut and Jeff Greene in Florida — failed, despite their efforts to turn affluence into a kind of populism by stressing the time they’d spent outside government, in a private-sector realm of results and common sense. Meg Whitman burned through more than $140 million of her own money in the course of losing the California governor’s race to Jerry Brown by almost 13 points.

Unlike Romney, those four were politicos-come-lately, with no prior experience in office. Like him, they had savvy opponents who raised pointed questions about how the candidates accrued their fortunes. They failed to cast their wealth in a positive light…

That debate rages still, drowning out realities that potentially flatter him. His support from the highest-earning voters, for example, can be described instead as support from the best-educated ones: the groups overlap. While his tax plan is indeed indulgent of the wealthy, it’s no more so than Santorum’s or Gingrich’s.