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…of abysmally boring Presidential campaigns, that is.

Whether singing the praises of ancient Sparta or doing his best Joseph McCarthy impression, Congressman Allen West has shown himself more than capable of being to Mitt Romney’s ticket what Sarah Palin was to John McCain’s.

Really, why not have West for VP? No less than Ted Nugent has testified to Mr. West’s readiness for this role. (I assume he did so only after his own Presidential campaign floundered on finding that “Commodus 2012″ made a poor slogan.) But Nugent is surely right that West would be a much-needed “game changer” for Romney’s campaign. Specifically, he would change Romney’s game from The Corporate Machine to Gears of War.

Moreover, it would give the writers at Saturday Night Live something to work with, which, as Maureen Dowd reports, is something they desperately want. The only real question would be: could they get Samuel L. Jackson to portray West? If yes, then the catchphrases very nearly write themselves.

Yes, all in all, I think West definitely has the potential to be 2012’s version of Sarah Palin. Don’t you agree?

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Paul Krugman is excited that the press is calling Romney out for cherry-picking data. Krugman also believes they are treating Romney with a more critical eye than they did George W. Bush.

And he’s right. But, I suspect the reason for this is a rather depressing one: Romney is less charismatic than Bush was. This, rather than any new-found commitment to truth on the part of the national press, is what has caused this. Both Romney and Bush are rich sons of politicians, but Bush could more credibly pull off the “I’m just like the average Joe”  act. Whereas Romney just seems like an awkward rich guy when he tries that.

In terms of both who they are and, what is more important, what they mean to do to the country, Bush and Romney are quite similar in my eyes. The differences are superficial, but superficial differences are, as it happens, quite important in Presidential campaigns these days.

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Mitt Romney has acquired something of a reputation for trying to be “all things to all people”, that he will say absolutely whatever it takes to get elected. The “Etch-a-Sketch” comment only reinforced this notion. As Andrew Sullivan put it:

It sums up every single worry about Romney in one metaphor: that he is a machine, that he can say or stand for anything, and that, from time to time, depending on which segment of the population he is appealing to, he will simply become something completely different.

It does remind me of another quote by a politician:

I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.

The politician in question was one Barack Obama, in his book The Audacity of Hope.

Republicans are probably thinking that this just goes to prove the existence of the “liberal media”. They would be wrong. What it goes to prove is the power of charisma. Obama’s statement is entirely accurate and, what is more, it is true without any effort on Obama’s part. Whereas Romney has to twist in the political winds, Obama gets stuff projected onto him effortlessly. This is one of the differences between a charismatic politician and an un-charismatic one.

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Mitt Romney may rest easy knowing that he is assured of the Republican nomination. That much is clear.

Watching Romney fight for the nomination has been like watching a football team with a mediocre offense and terrible defense scratch and claw its way to a Conference championship, knowing all the time that they’ll have to go on to play a team with a great defense and a record-setting offense. Watching someone fight to win the chance to get beat on a larger stage is a curious feeling.

I’m still nervous, no question. I am worried that the Democrats might make some sort of costly mistake. That’s the trouble with being the favorite; the pressure is on you not to screw up. Suppose Obama goes and makes accurate statements about guns and religion again. Suppose Biden tries to make “gird your loins” the campaign slogan. When you ought to win, it’s quite nerve-racking.

I seem confident, don’t I? Too confident, you think? Maybe even arrogant? My liberal friends tell me I am these. I don’t think this can be right, though, because I am a pessimist. I’ve said so before. So, how can I have such confidence in my side’s ability to win this election?

As always, I believe the election will be decided by charisma. Read any of my articles tagged with this word and you will see what I mean. This article from the satirical paper The Onion illustrates the problem in a nutshell. Whereas the phenomenon described in that article more-or-less did occur around Obama in 2008, the idea of it occurring around Romney in 2012 is simply laughable.

Having the ability to make people like you instinctively is a powerful asset in politics. Romney does not have it. Whatever he has accomplished he has done with either political know-how or vast amounts of money. The charismatic approach is not open to him. Obama, on the other hand, is very charismatic. Thus, this is a truly dreadful matchup for Mr. Romney.

He might be able to win against an opponent like Al Gore or John Kerry. In such a contest, money and the Republican political machine would be deciding factors. But not against Obama. For someone as charismatic as he is, all television coverage is like free advertising. Just seeing the man talk subtly makes people more sympathetic to him. This largely negates Romney’s financial advantages, since financial advantages are used to purchase advertising with the goal of persuading voters.

The Republican propagandists will certainly give it the old college try, but there is little they can say about Obama that they weren’t saying in 2008. It failed then, and it is unlikely to work now. It is true that Romney does not have the problem of separating himself from an unpopular sitting President like McCain did, but he suffers from what may be an even worse problem: the suspicion of clandestine liberalism which hangs over him.

It is commonly known that Romney must distance himself from things he himself did in the past, to try to erase this suspicion. So far, it hasn’t been working, and the problem has now been famously compounded by his adviser’s “Etch-a-Sketch” comment. In truth, the most revealing thing about this comment is that it seemingly offers us a window into his campaign’s plans. When asked if his client had been forced too far to the “right”, his adviser implied they planned to correct this move in the Fall. But if Romney will revert to his “centrist”, Massachusetts Republican ways in the Fall, it may become apparent to the voting public that Obama himself is not a “far-leftist” at all, but rather “centrist” himself. At which point, it will be difficult for the voters to see much difference between Obama and Romney, except that Obama remains the more charismatic.

There is always the chance of some surprising revelation, or some disastrous gaffe by Obama or some other Democrat. But as things stand now, I think it is highly probable Obama will win re-election easily.

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There’s an article by Lloyd Grove in The Daily Beast about how the press supposedly encourages Mitt Romney to act artificial:

Romney’s story [about his father closing a factory with humorous consequences], on its face, is a parable of the frequent absurdity of politics and campaigning, which often present reality as viewed through a funhouse mirror; by telling it, Romney not only revealed his little-known sardonic side (and an appreciation of the bizarre nature of the democratic process that speaks well of his sense of perspective), but he also treated Wisconsin voters like grownups who are themselves sophisticated about that process. [Emphasis Mine.]

Predictably, the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign’s media machine pounced on the anecdote as further evidence that Romney is an out-of-touch plutocrat with zero capacity to feel the pain of laid-off autoworkers, never mind that the great majority of these particular workers, who lost their jobs in Michigan 58 years ago, are feeling no pain themselves.

Journalists, Grove complains, attacked poor Romney for this remark, their reportage on the incident being more or less in line with the Democrats’ line on it. This, he argues, will in turn make Romney even more artificial.

In a way, both sides are right here. It is true that this was an instance of Romney being less artificial, but it’s also very telling that, when Romney is kicking back and telling a funny anecdote, it’s about factory closings and politics. The thing that makes Romney look out of touch here is not so much his lack of sympathy for those workers all those years ago, but rather that his mind, even when relaxed, focuses on issues of running big businesses and political strategy.

In other words, running big businesses and political strategy are all the guy knows. That’s not his fault, and it may even be to his credit in a sense; as those aren’t bad things for a President to know. But the point is that that’s his life, and he has very little visceral understanding of other things. Laughing during the story isn’t what makes him seem out of touch; it’s the fact that that’s the kind of story he thinks of. Romney seems out of touch because he, in fact, is.

I can only hope that this piece by Grove, which doesn’t seem to quite get that, is an April Fools’ joke.

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It was suggested in the forum by a person named Santorum

That the people would vote for ‘im if on the Bible he would run.

Another sought to bring rich people’s cash, and having which,

This man called Gingrich had once thought he’d all but won.

And at this time the call for “revolution” went up all

Among supporters of Ron Paul who were so sure they had struck gold.

And all the time was omnipresent the suspicion that Mitt Romney

Only could keep folks from needing their misery and poverty consoled.