Every time he’s given a nice speech after a primary victory, I would usually joke on Twitter, “ah, looks like those new personality software upgrades are working out, he sounds much more natural now,” or something like that. (It’s a perennial; as Erick Erickson said last night, “Romney v.6.5 is pretty awesome.”)

But the Mitt Romney we saw tonight . . . it’s as if he had been saving up every bit of his inner emotional life, his soft, sentimental side, and let it all out. This was a speech that requires us to reexamine what we think we know about Romney. He might be a guy who is just spectacularly focused, and remarkably capable and adaptable. And in each objective in Romney’s life — at Bain, in Massachusetts, in his past campaigns — he has done, and adapted, to whatever the situation requires. And so when people say he’s stiff, or boring . . . remember that he’s never really needed to be “humanized” before now. Or people like you and I have urged him to do it, but he hasn’t really needed to do it . . . until this moment. Right around now, the casual voters start paying attention.