Here’s Mr. Cold Hard Data for you:

Romney and his campaign had gone into the evening confident they had a good path to victory, for emotional and intellectual reasons. The huge and enthusiastic crowds in swing state after swing state in recent weeks – not only for Romney but also for Paul Ryan – bolstered what they believed intellectually: that Obama would not get the kind of turnout he had in 2008.

They thought intensity and enthusiasm were on their side this time – poll after poll showed Republicans were more motivated to vote than Democrats – and that would translate into votes for Romney.

As a result, they believed the public/media polls were skewed – they thought those polls oversampled Democrats and didn’t reflect Republican enthusiasm. They based their own internal polls on turnout levels more favorable to Romney. That was a grave miscalculation, as they would see on election night.

Forgive me for finding this incredible. Romney was sold (and sold himself) for years as a guy who was obsessed with data, only cared about data, after all that’s what he did in his business career! And in the end, his campaign’s analysis was all about intangibles like momentum, enthusiasm, energy. The data had to take a back seat.

To be fair, this is human nature. The unwillingness to face up to dire situations, to try to escape into more comfortable fantasies, is universal (if unequal) in human beings. Still, it’s notable now that Mitt Romney’s political career is at an end, that he every bit the mediocre politician everyone pegged him as. Four times he went before the voters as a candidate for office. Three of those times he lost. At no point does it appear he worked to improve at his deficiencies–his 2012 primary campaign wasn’t any better than his 2008 campaign, it only was waged against weaker opposition (and he barely squeaked by this time). And the only legacy he leaves behind is a mammoth pile of lies, deceptions and distortions that my guess is are unequaled since the final campaign of Richard Nixon. I know that popular sentiment holds that all politicians lie, which is to true because all people lie. But it’s always worth noting that politicians that lie, cheat, steal, and intrigue as a matter of course are simply bad politicians. There are people in all fields who do those things, and for the same reason: they’re not good enough to earn it on their own. Mitt Romney is a world-class liar because he simply doesn’t have the capability to lead. America wisely turned his bid down, and we can all be thankful for that.