The Myth of Mitt

Responding to increasing indications that John McCain is looking seriously at Mitt Romney as a VP choice Noam Scheiber rounds up the evidence that Romney doesn't exactly have huge appeal to swing voters. Stepping back, though, before McCain does this I would urge him to recall what happened back in the primaries. Romney had a lot of advantages -- solid conservative positions on the issues, a lot of institutional support, and a ton of money.

But he wound up losing because, basically, people find him loathesome. Some find him loathesome because of his religion, some because of his flip-flopping, and others just because he's loathesome. But whatever the reason, people just really don't like Mitt Romney. Putting him on the ticket seems like an obvious recipe for disaster, but a potential boon to progressive bloggers who are really in need of a mockable choice.