Romney & CPAC

It has now become a tradition, Mitt Romney goes down to the annual CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee convention), grovels, snarls and then comes in second to some giddy wowser in the straw poll.
This year he got bested by a full seven points by Ron Paul, the semi-demented congressman and all around full time Objectivist Mystic.
Romney won the CPAC poll but usually in years when his opposition was declining for whatever reason to spend the money on buffet tables and banners.
It isn't hard to see why Mitt Romney has these problems, he hasn't an iota of charisma to obscure his money and buttress his good looks, he is shamelessly opportunistic in a really annoying way and is utterly incapable to projecting even the simplest air of sincerity.
He claims ad nauseum to be a super manager of huge enterprises, yet he churlishly walked out on the biggest job he ever got (the Governorship of Massachusetts) to chase the Presidential will-o-th'-wisp.
Lotsa baggage there quite frankly.
But he does have certain strengths for all that, lacking rhetorical gifts Romney nonetheless excels at painting his opponents as inexperienced fools and malevolent extremists.
He is a past master of the "butter wouldn't melt in his mouth" school of sanctimony.
It is how he successively dismissed Jane "Jingle Money" Swift from the Governorship and how he beat Shannon O'Brien in the General Election in 2002.
He makes himself look plausible but only in comparison to the opposition he faces.
Conversely, Romney withers whenever the spotlight blazes down on him alone, the more he tries to move people in a positive way the more they seem to dislike him.
Romney lost the New Hampshire Primary three years ago in part because he authorized two minute campaign commercials on the eve of the vote that reeked of desperation, they looked and sounded like hostage videos shot on the banks of the Merrimac River.
My point is, he can win elections (at least one at any rate) but his methods therein are thoroughly Bushian in nature, push em' into the mud and run away denying all responsibility.
There is little that has happened so far to suggest that Romney's rhetorical skills have improved so it is very likely if he is to be a playa in 2012 he is gonna have to resort to what works for him.
Sanctimonious backstabbery.