So here is a question: Not to defend the pocket-lining practices of some consultants, do the qualities of consultants, or do the qualities of candidates themselves determine the fate of campaigns? What major failing of the Romney campaign, for example, can be laid solely, or even for the most part, at the feet of the consultants rather than the man who hired them?

And in a larger sense, did consultants create the weak 2012 GOP primary field? Did they cause Mitch Daniels not to run? Did they cause Rick Perry to implode? Were they behind Rick Santorum’s dogged march to success, and then his self-destruction over contraception, Catholicism, and other cultural issues? Was any of that the work of a consultant?

Ask the same questions about 2008 and the McCain campaign. And in an even larger sense, did consultants cause the damage to the Republican — and conservative — cause that came from George W. Bush’s eight years in office?

All of those developments were the exclusive creations of men who ran, or didn’t run, for office, not the people they hired to manage their campaigns.