In a surprisingly honest speech delivered to the University of Utah, Mitt Romney muses on the present presidential candidate race. The whole thing warrants reading, here’s a particularly prescient snippet:

For the last three decades, the Clintons have lived at the intersection of money and politics, trading their political influence to enrich their personal finances. They embody the term “crony capitalism.” It disgusts the American people and causes them to lose faith in our political process.

A person so untrustworthy and dishonest as Hillary Clinton must not become president. But a Trump nomination enables her victory. The audio and video of the infamous Tapper-Trump exchange on the Ku Klux Klan will play a hundred thousand times on cable and who knows how many million times on social media.

I’m glad the Republican establishment knows that Trump stands no real chance in the general election against a vetted careerist like Clinton. When Romney ran, I supported and voted for Obama, but given the present political circus, a Romney candidacy would be a welcome sanity.

The reason that the current crop of candidates besides Trump are so weak is that they’re playing his game, on his terms. No one can “out Donald the Donald”, because he’s been slinging insults and schmoozing audiences his whole life. Even with Romney’s speech, all it takes for The Donald to deflect it is to say something to the effect of, “Who? Romney? What that loser is telling me how to win?”

The Republican establishment has fallen prey to Rule 19 of the Internet:

The more you hate it, the stronger it gets.