Michael Tomasky sums up the ludicrous Mitt Romney, now departed.

Romney is proof that elections aren’t only about ideological openings. His problem was that he just wasn’t a persuasive person. Everything about him and his campaign seemed a little insincere. He was a liberal Republican in the 1990s, and now he’s a straight down the line wingnut. Early in the campaign he was about leadership, or something. Then, when he saw that Barack Obama was catching on with this “change” thing, suddenly he was about change. Then, when that didn’t quite take, he was about fixing Washington. There was a most recent fourth iteration that I’ve wiped from my memory.

So he was kind of a fake all along, and apparently not just to this liberal. I always thought that he was hurt very badly by his lame answer last year when he was asked by a citizen (an anti-war activist of some kind) why, if he was so gung-ho about the Iraq war and war in general, not one of his five sons – all draft age – had volunteered to serve in the armed forces. He replied in part that “one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I’d be a great president.” I should think that equating the willingness to get a paper burn stuffing envelopes with the willingness to be blown to bits halfway around the world was a bit much especially for conservatives.

So off he goes. He is not of great interest, and I have trouble imagining we’ll have to worry about him again in four years or eight.