Four Takes on Mittmentum's End

Pundits won’t have Mitt Romney to kick around anymore after his withdrawal today from the Republican race. Here are four final jabs:

• Romney fell because he turned his positions inside out, Newsweek's Howard Fineman says, relying “bad, cynical advice.” Above all, “voters know a phony.” Too bad, because Mitt could have won in a slowing economy if he’d “stuck to selling his managerial mettle.”

• The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn has mixed feelings. The lefty thinks Romney would’ve made the best GOP president, an “uncommonly talented manager” unlikely to start a bad war. It’s too bad he resorted to “breathtaking” shape-shifting.
• With his great departure speech, Romney “positioned himself to be the frontrunner” in 2012, predicts National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez. She’s saddened today and buys into Mitt’s take on his honorable exit: “The governor made a down-payment on a conservative future.”
• Another righty says Mitt may have dropped out to keep Mike Huckabee off a John McCain ticket, figuring Mac would been forced to deputize Huck to stop Romney. “If so, he is doing an immense favor” to the GOP—which could never stomach two mavericks at once.

(More Mitt Romney stories.)