I don’t think that his Mormonism is what ultimately cost Romney so many votes he might have won. As has been said, the existence of two other candidates with naturally overlapping constituencies was a major cost. In fact, in our race each candidate (except Paul and maybe not Huck so much) has suffered from that.

One problem Romney has, which I was acutely aware of the other night, is that he comes off just a bit too effete. He is smart and thoughtful. But each time John McCain said something that was smirky or a direct lie, (the business about timetables), after trying to correct it, Mitt’s natural inclination was to shoot a plaintive look at the questioners, as if to signal that he and they both knew that McCain was misbehaving. This was entirely redolent of the behavior of the teacher’s pet, who always knows the right answer, looking for authority to back him up in an argument with the class bully. But if you are president you have to be the authority, and you had better be able to slay the dragon right there and then, without looking to some offstage authority figure to nod in agreement that you are right. This little bit of body language reinforced whatever it was that McCain’s people meant recently when one of them was quoted saying, “Mitt Romney is the kind of guy that John McCain used to beat up at school.” (That’s a paraphrase.)

I found the remark obnoxious (as you would expect a grown woman to) at the time. But when I watched the interaction described above, I knew what that guy meant. And the fact is, you don’t want to vote for the bully, but you don’t want to vote for the goody two-shoes either.

I will be voting for Romney in the New York primary because I have a long history of voting for the more conservative candidate, who usually loses, and I’m not giving up now. But it’s a pity, in a way, that Romney came out in such a long season. He has gotten too much exposure to start again. But what he needs is time to absorb his mistakes, maybe do some serious foreign-policy work, and come back a little more seasoned, and a little less polished and shiny.