Mitt Romney is no Richard Nixon

Henry also makes a few other arguments straight out of fantasy land. “Romney is re-emerging as the de facto leader of the Republican Party,” he wrote. Seriously? When was the last time an elected Republican, GOP candidate, or conservative activist said to themselves, “I wonder what Mitt Romney thinks on this issue” before taking a position?

“When Republicans don’t hold the presidency, they tend to nominate ‘the guy who last ran’ (think Nixon ’68, Reagan ’80, Dole ’96, McCain ’08 and Romney ’12) and reject newcomers not yet tested at the presidential level,” Henry wrote. But in every one of those examples — save Nixon — candidates lost prior Republican primaries — they didn’t lose general elections. Again, see above for why the Nixon comparison doesn’t hold water.

But Henry saved the best for last. He wrote, “All failed nominees other than Romney were career politicians.Where Romney stands out versus every failed nominee of the last half century is that he, a lifelong businessman with just one successful four-year stint as governor of Massachusetts, is not a career politician.”

It’s almost adorable that Romney loyalists want to perpetuate this canard when talking about a man who first ran for U.S. Senate 20 years ago, and who has since served as governor and run for president twice.