Last night Rich explained a bit about NR’s endorsement process to Hugh Hewitt:

HH: Take me inside first the process by which National Review arrived at its endorsement. RL: (laughing) I don’t know, Hugh. It’s a really tightly held process here. It’s like selecting the Pope. We can’t reveal too much, but… HH: How many people got a say in this? RL: Well, it’s our senior editors, our publisher, our president and our Washington editor and myself. And we’ve been talking about it the last two weeks or so, just because this is our, through the quirks of our publication schedule, this is our last issue before people vote in Iowa and New Hampshire.

So complaining to anybody else at NR or NRO is not really going to do any good. In fact, complaining won’t do any good, period. If the magazine endorsed somebody besides your guy, you say, “I disagree,” you hope it does Romney as much good as it did Phil Gramm, and then life goes on.

I don’t see a great deal to disagree with in the editors’ assessment; every one of these guys has a major strength and some significant weakness, and I may weigh the decisive factors a bit differently.

I said yesterday that the grassroots salesmen for the candidate matter a great deal. For example, even if I agreed with Ron Paul on most issues, the fact that so many of his grassroots backers TYPE IN ALL CAPS and swear like sailors and declare themselves the only “REAL Republicans” etc., and blurt out “Neocon Jew” like they have Tourette’s Syndrome — sorry, pal, as Dennis Miller said yesterday, “I’d rather take a shower in a Bangkok storm drain” than endorse an attitude like that.

Huckabee’s supporters may be inching down this path. Today, I don’t want to hear from anybody trying to persuade me that Huckabee was right on the theological doctrine when he raised the issue of what Mormons believe about Jesus and the devil. I’m still waiting to hear from somebody a persuasive case that Mitt Romney’s Mormon beliefs will somehow negatively affect his performance as President. If Romney had pledged to have multiple first ladies or to bring back Prohibition, we would be having a different conversation. He hasn’t, and so when supporters of a particular candidate, or the candidate himself, seem a bit excessively focused on another candidate’s faith… it doesn’t reflect well on them or him.