Mitt Romney’s biggest enemy: Mitt Romney
By Brian McGrory

Admittedly, and please don’t hold this against me, I always kind of liked Mitt Romney.

I liked when he told me, fresh off his gubernatorial election, “I want to do a better job for people who need government’s help,’’ and when he oversaw the landmark health care reform and when he restored hundreds of thousands of dollars in the budget for the homeless.

But somewhere around the time he was disavowing his stands on abortion rights, on sensible immigration policies, on pretty much the entire role of government in society, I came to realize one true thing: I liked the concept of Mitt Romney more than I liked the man himself.

The concept is the businessman who neither needs nor craves the elective job. The concept is the fully formed adult who refuses to get caught up in the petty semantics and intellectual gymnastics that consume so many career politicians. The concept is the person more devoted to ideas than ideology, someone who doesn’t sweat every poll.

By the time he got to the cornfields of Iowa and the strip malls of New Hampshire four years ago, the man and the concept had irreparable differences. He distorted his past. He contorted his views. Mitt Romney seemed diminished by what should have been a grand pursuit.

Still, when this campaign rolled around, and the economy was the focus, Romney seemed like the man for the moment. He was a titan in business. He had governed Massachusetts out of a recession. He is uncommonly intelligent. And it doesn’t hurt that he basically comes across as Abraham Lincoln compared to the assorted cranks and crackpots who make up most of the Republican field.

He’s even pushed an early, effective message, one that goes like this: Voters in 2008 put their faith in a young, untested candidate in Barack Obama, as is the American way. Nothing against him, Romney says, but time has shown he isn’t up to the job. The message may work, because it may be right.

But then came last week’s television ad, the first of Romney’s campaign, and everything old is new again. The spot shows Obama saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’’ Problem is, as has been widely reported, Obama was repeating and mocking what a John McCain aide said about the GOP strategy in the 2008 race. The full Obama quote went like this: “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’’

Which brings us to Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom. He may or may not be better than his recent zero-for-six record reflects, though he was great as CrazyKhazei on Twitter, circulating anonymous insults in the Massachusetts Senate race on behalf of Scott Brown. Then his identity was revealed, and he looked like he was running for student council at a reform school.

Of the Romney ad and the out-of-context quote, Fehrnstrom bizarrely told the Globe, “It’s all deliberate.’’ Of the outcry from Obama’s camp: “Their reaction was quite hysterical.’’ Of the obvious deception: “If you do your job, [voters] will learn about it.’’

So basically, Romney deliberately deceived the public; he’s laughing because his opponent thinks it’s wrong; he feels no obligation to the truth. Is that about right?

And with that, Mitt Romney has yet again relinquished his role as the adult in this race, the serious-minded reformer who soars above the fray to tell it like it is. Romney, yet again, is just another politician willing to sacrifice what’s left of his integrity for a vote.

If he deceives in an ad, does he deceive in a speech? Does he have that little respect for the voters? In this environment, with these opponents, is he really incapable of making an honest, straightforward case?

Romney and the concept have never been so far apart. At a time when nothing good ever seems to get done in government, he’s showing himself to be another face in the crowd.