Romney Already Tossing McCain Aside

Sarah Palin may or may not have been the right choice for him, but at least John McCain must be feeling good today about his decision to pass on Mitt Romney as his running-mate.

Romney badly wanted the spot and devoted the last six months—after dropping out of the presidential race in February—to pursuing it, using countless television and radio appearances to trash Barack Obama and herald McCain as an unusually capable, qualified and principled leader.

This posture marked an abrupt shift from his G.O.P. primary strategy (in which he positioned himself as the true conservative and attacked McCain—relentlessly—as a heretic whose nomination would destroy the soul of the party) so much that it prompted a reasonable question: Was Romney interested in helping McCain win in 2008, or just in positioning himself to run again in 2012?

The aggressive politicking on Romney's behalf by some prominent Republican establishment figures—many of whom have lukewarm (at best) relations with McCain—further fueled this skepticism.

Romney, of course, expressed bewilderment that anyone would think '12 was on his mind at all. He was, in his telling, just a concerned American citizen standing up for a man whose leadership his country badly needed.

For a while, it looked like it might actually work. But then, last Friday, McCain snubbed Romney and chose Palin instead. And now, just five days later, Romney - magically - seems far less interested in the Obama-McCain race. As the Boston Globe reported today: