I think the word is smarmy, somebody who is always smiling and not quite saying anything.

If Romney says anything, it will be after he has assured everybody how handsome Obama is and bring out the endless string of clichés required of respectable conservatism.

Gingrich is often stupid and wrong, but he gets it OVER with. He just says the required horseshit and then goes on to the subject.

Romney is the perfect image of the Republicans who runs as a non-Democrat. He smiles and he smiles and he smiles.

There may be an undercurrent of the Internet Age here. One of the great innovations of this age is TLDR — Too Long, Didn’t Read. This attitude may be getting to politics. In the 1850’s Lincoln or Douglas would have an audience that brought a couple of meals and expected a short speech to give hem at least two hours’ entertainment.

Now the standard respectability ritual, which varies about as reciting the Creed does in church, causes the audience to cough and get restless.

One can see Gingrich with a wrinkle in his suit and one does not associate him with a smile. The media emphasizes this because it has always demanded smarmy conservatives who repeat the Creed carefully and in full.

I wonder what Romney would be like with a single wrinkle in his jacket or with no hint of an apologetic smile on his face?

There is nothing to choose between a Gingrich or a Romney, or an Obama as president.

So maybe, just maybe, people are getting tired of sitting through the Creed and waiting the apologetic smile.