Romney out

It appears that the Stupid Party will not be re-running the unelectable loser Mitt Romney in 2016:

On a ski lift high above the powdery slopes of Deer Valley, Utah, Mitt Romney made it clear: His quest for the White House, which had dominated nearly a decade of his life, was coming to a close.

The selling point for Romney was that he was "electable" in a way that his opponents were not.  This is the manner of things: the rich who bankroll the party coalesce behind a boring figure of no significant threat to the status quo.  Objections from the party rank and file are then brushed aside, for while the other candidates may have stronger credentials, they are, alas, not electable.

Romney could not run again because he had proven this argument false.  His only appeal was that he was thought to be a winner.  But he was not, so the Stupid Party has turned on to duller and more depressing things:

“People were much more excited about Jeb [Bush] than Mitt,” said Ron Gidwitz, a Chicago financier who helped raise millions for Mr. Romney and allied groups in 2012. “Mitt ran twice before unsuccessfully. He’s a great guy. But winning is everything in this business.”

The elites are uniting behind another Bush. Heaven help us all. 

On the one hand, Jeb is not his brother's keeper, and so can not be held accountable for the fact that George W. was such a disastrous president.  (And to the holdouts who insist he was a good president, the current president is the best proof to the contrary.  George W. Bush was so bad the country elected Barack Obama--twice!--rather than endure another Republican president.)

On the other hand, I've had enough of the Bushes for my lifetime.  And enough Clintons for that matter.  What does it say about our democratic republic that, since 1988, only eight years will have seen someone other than Bush or Clinton in the white house?

In a well functioning organization, the most important positions are filled by the most impressive members of that organization.  Applying this theory to the present topic, three possible conclusions present themselves.

1) The most well-qualified people in our republic of over three hundred million people just happen to come from one of two families (three, if we count the Obama's);

2) The Presidency is not all that important, and so can be handled by mediocrities with little harm;

3) Our republic is highly dysfunctional.

I leave the answer as an exercise for the reader.