Sometimes people who are smart and good at explaining things — such as our better pundits — become so impressed with the wisdom of their own insights they explain things that never happened, or why something that did couldn’t. Take, for example, Peggy Noonan.
Noonan explains that Mitt Romney could never be president, and shouldn’t run, because he’s not like Ronald Reagan.
The real Romney-Reagan difference is this: There was something known as Reaganism. It was a real movement within the party and then the nation. Reaganism had meaning. You knew what you were voting for. It was a philosophy that people understood. Philosophies are powerful. They carry you, and if they are right and pertinent to the moment they make you inevitable.
There is no such thing as Romneyism and there never will be. Mr. Romney has never encompassed a philosophical world. He has never become the symbol of an attitude toward government, or an approach to freedom or fairness. “Romneyism” is just “Mitt should be president.” That is not enough.
And that explains why neither George H.W. Bush nor George W. Bush could ever be president.
