And Their Last Words Were, "But Romney Still Stands!"

Here lies the career of Mitt Romney 

Cratered at the age of seventy three. 

For fifteen minutes he faked some vitality; 

Not a bad record for this locality.

Pity the poor Never Trumpers.  

First to endure the shock of suddenly discovering at the tender age of [checks notes] somewhere between their late 50s and early 70s that their Republican Party has been full of Republicans all along.  Then to be political orphaned and thrown into the cruel world with nothing but the clothes on their backs, the many properties, privileges and amassed wealth which being loyal Republican lieutenants for decades had earned them, millions of dollars in free publicity gifted to them by a fawning mainstream media for their every utterance, immediate underwriting from wealthy backers for their every undertaking, book contracts, op-ed columns and so forth.   

And the worse of it?  Being forced to eke out this hardscrabble existence by laboring day and night  to [checks notes] rip off every searing, clear-eyed appraisal that Liberals have made of their party over the past 40 years (for which Liberals were made made outcasts from the mainstream media as cranks and alarmists for saying such horrible things out loud), filing off the serial numbers and then reselling them at a huge markup as edgy, new and brilliant Conservative epiphanies...all while continuing to hold in contempt the very same Liberals from whom they steal so freely every single day.  

As I said, it's a man's life in the British Dental Association it's a hard life out here in the cold, cold world for Never Trumpers, but at least they've always had the blazing hearth of Mitt Romney's True Conservatism to warm their fingers and fannies when the bitter winds blew.  

To-date I believe I have listened to pretty much every podcast on which Stuart Stevens has been a guest.  He has five or six stock anecdotes, and he always finds time to work a few of them into the conversation, almost verbatim.  And as he has moved from microphone to microphone clinically autopsying what has happened to his party over the past 50 years that has led it to this very dark place, Stevens always has a special carve-out for Romney.  

Stevens ran Romney's 2012 campaign so it's no surprise that he nearly always slips in a paeans to Romney as a pillar of pure, unalloyed Conservatives rectitude in every appearance, but praise for Romney is shot right through pretty much all Never Trump media 

Romney the Righteous.  

Romney the Just.

Romney the Sellout.

From Politico:

Romney supports holding a vote on next Supreme Court nominee

The announcement means Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has enough votes to move forward with Trump's pick.

As I pointed out last year as Never Trumpers were anointing Romney as their new Savior ("Hokum's Heroes") --

And unto them this day in the Beltway media, a Republican Savior was born.

Or, rather, assembled out of spare parts salvaged from their previous failures...

-- as long as they continue to look for salvation in a new paint job slapped on the same, old, monstrous ideas, you can never trust these people.

No Half Measures