Why Nobody Should Care What Mitt Romney Thinks, But We Do Anyway

It's not uncommon for the loser of a presidential election, regardless of party, to have an interview a few months later to reflect on their loss.  And in the last few elections prior to 2012, nobody really bothered to question why we do this.  It's interesting to hear from the also-ran why he didn't get to the finish line, to be sure, but there's also the matter of previous candidates still being in the political arena in some fashion despite not being president: John McCain is unfortunately still a Senator, John Kerry was still a Senator, and Al Gore, while not holding public office, is still a huge activist for not screwing up the planet any more than we already have.

Mitt Romney is nothing.

After his second failed bid for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Romney has gone back to doing what he does best: diving through mountains of cash like Scrooge motherfucking McDuck.  Only Scrooge made his money with honest hard work -- the character started out as a literal boot-polisher -- instead of being born into money and wresting an even bigger fortune away from actual honest, hardworking people.

And we know why he lost.  He lost because he was a terrible candidate: an out-of-touch, self-righteous, exceedingly arrogant, chauvinistic asshole who ran the biggest clusterfuck of a campaign since George McGovern, and couldn't convince even half the country that he wasn't a total schmuck.

Nobody should give a single constipated shit what he thinks.  He's not involved in politics anymore, and he isn't going to tell us anything we hadn't figured out by November 6, 2012.

So why does anyone care enough to let him tell us his sob story about how much he and his wife pretend to be concerned for anybody but the ironic 47% who voted for him?

The answer is twofold.  First, we need a distraction.  Or more specifically, the GOP needs a distraction.  They need something to point at to get their constituents' minds off how much they can't get their shit together, because they care more about being True Republicans than actual lawmakers.  Second, it's a mad scramble to get back into the bubble before reality turns them into progressives, because Romney was the center and wall of that bubble for a year and a half.

So by rights, nobody in either party should be caring what Romney thinks.  He's a loser who should fade back into irrelevance, and be remembered the same way we remember Michael Dukakis' existence after 1988.  But for a party that is smack in the middle of a midlife crisis that would make a 49ers fan roll his eyes, Romney is grudgingly safe territory.  A reminder of what the party should stand for, and the Dickens-era hellhole that it wants to drag the country back kicking and screaming into.

For the rest of us?  Hearing a smug asshole weep is some sweet, sweet music and a slice of schadenfreude pie.