I realize in some circles I’m still an “accomplice to bigotry” — yes, officer, I drove the getaway car – and I’m unlikely to ever again be a trusted voice among the Romniacs. Still, I thought the Economist’s profile on Mitt Romney laid out his strengths in pretty compelling terms:

He has several appealing qualities. The most obvious is competence. Nearly everything he has done, he has done well. He co-founded Bain Capital, a firm that made returns of 100% a year while he was in charge by investing in start-ups or buying ill-managed firms and reviving them. His colleagues describe him as an excellent manager with a hunger for detail. For example, when deciding whether to invest in Staples, a discount stationery store, he ignored what small businesses told him they spent on stationery and asked instead to look at the receipts. He found they spent far more than they thought. He saw a gap in the market, Staples filled it and Mr Romney made a packet…

After nearly seven years of a “big picture” President, an eye-on-the-details man in the Oval Office sounds refreshing…

[As governor], he inherited a deficit of $3 billion. He cut spending, raised fees for such things as drivers’ licences and gun licences and, with the help of a windfall in capital-gains taxes, turned the deficit into a $700m surplus by 2006. Perhaps his most striking achievement, however, was to make health insurance compulsory.
His scheme, thrashed out with the Democrats who control the Massachusetts legislature, seeks to make health care universal but still largely private. All but the smallest employers are obliged to offer or contribute to their employees’ health insurance. Individuals who still lack coverage are required to buy it. For the poor, there are subsidies. For everyone else, there are tax breaks. And Mr Romney has set up an exchange to make it easier to shop around for the right insurance policy.

The Economist also seems convinced that Romney can win:

And his apparent strategy makes sense. First, to win over the Republican base by stressing that he is both socially and fiscally conservative: pro-market, pro-military, pro-family, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and anti-tax. If he wins the nomination, he will presumably then make a play for the centre ground by stressing his competence, his ability to work with Democrats and the fact that his health reform actually happened, whereas Hillary Clinton’s flopped.
So far, his supporters seem more attracted to his track record than his platform. Frank Calabrese, a student who came to hear him speak in Chicago last month, says Mr Romney is “the most accomplished candidate”; adding that his success at everything he turns his hand to is “almost non-human”. That, ironically, is one of his weaknesses.

Ah, there I go again, linking to a story calling him almost non-human. Mission accompliced.