I don’t understand why so many on FR liked and bought in his BS.
I have seen a lot of bandwagoning on FR over the years. Some of the fights were severe and caused purges by management.
I recall the hoopla over Fred Thompson. My 5-minute Googling showed him to be McCain-lite. He didn't last long in the race.
2012 was a severe year -- no GOP incumbent after the 2008 McCain disaster. Each of the half-dozen contenders became front-runner for a couple of weeks. None of them survived the media onslaught they got as front-runners. The GOP finally defaulted to Romney who couldn't even beat the weakly Dem incumbent.
I thought at the time that Romney’s loss was a stolen election, electronic voting. It was compounded because he didn’t fight it, didn’t ask for recounts or anything. He just accepted the results. This then led to more egregious experience with Trump.