The Return of Management Consultant Mitt Romney

Miss Mitt Romney yet? Our former governor gave his first post-election TV interview to Fox News, and the network is teasing a clip of him telling Chris Wallace how he thinks President Obama has handled the sequester. See if the tone sounds familiar:

Well, no one can think that’s been a success for the President. He didn’t think the sequester would happen. It is happening. But to date, what we’ve seen is the President out campaigning to the American people, doing rallies around the country, flying around the country, and berating Republicans. And blaming and pointing. Now what does that do? That causes the Republicans to retrench and then put up a wall and fight back. It’s a very natural human emotion.

Without getting into whether he’s right, tonally, this sounds to us like the return of “Management Consultant Mitt.” People criticized the former Massachusetts governor and his campaign during his presidential run for getting away from the things that made him an attractive politician in the first place. The campaign eventually sought to correct this shift, and in October, Politico reported that he and his family had decided to recalibrate and, at last, “let Mitt be Mitt” which apparently meant emphasizing his moderation and pragmatism in the wake of a great first debate performance that made him appear to have both.

Without the pressure of needing anyone to vote for him, Romney seems free to sound more like he did once upon a time running for governor. Romney is still coming down on the side of Republicans in this quote to Fox News, but he’s doing so from his original stance: that of the manager of people. He doesn’t get into the details or the politics of the sequester, but the president’s handling of it. It seems that losing an election has finally allowed him “be Mitt.” Unfortunately for him, not quite as many people are listening.