Nor is it settled that Mitt Romney was defeated because he was too much of a gentleman. I’d wager that many of those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 were thinking, “A candidate who says that 47 percent of the nation are indolent ‘takers’ is not my kind of guy.” Besides, he was running against an incumbent president whose approval ratings were above 50 percent in the final weeks of the race. And despite all of that, he still managed to get a bigger share of the popular vote (47.2) than Donald Trump achieved in 2016 (46.1). And don’t forget, Trump’s opponent was under FBI investigation — an inquiry that was reopened a week before the vote.
The fable that John McCain was felled by excessive delicacy in 2008 is also absurd. A two-term Republican president had just presided over a (perceived) failed war and the worst economic crisis in decades. It would have been a steep uphill struggle for any Republican even without the collective swoon for the charismatic first black major-party candidate.
Whatever Romney’s motive may have been in penning the critical op-ed, it’s clear that what he wrote is the truth, which is worth a lot these days.
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