Romney

Like Brian McGrory, I think that the post-big dig disaster period was Governor Romney's finest hour (Shrinking Candidate, Boston Globe, March 2, 2012: B1).

It was however, the exception.

During his candidacy and during his time in office, Romney was characterized by the triumph of style (or photo-op) over substance.

When a candidate he worked for a day as a burger flipper and a fish processor so he could understand what ordinary folk were like. Great photo-ops but little gain in understanding. To gain that, he should have read "Nickled and Dimed" or "When Work Disappears" to understand the struggles that low income people go through day by day in the struggle to get work, to get to work, to get a home, and to get from and to home.

As Governor, he rode for one stop on the Red Line to show how safe the subway was after the London bombings -- again a great photo-op that was marred by his failure to know the exact fare.

Alas, I think the Romney we see in this campaign is the Romney that is. That is surprising given his vaunted analytic and managerial competence.