Tomorrow's Obama-Romney Lunch

Jokes aside, this could conceivably be a good thing, this lunch, and Romney can make a useful citizen of himself if he agrees to try to play some kind of moderating role in the Republican Party. Of course, Republicans will just not listen to him, and in a way why should they, but he's still one of the country's best-known Republicans, and while he lost handily he did come semi-reasonably close to becoming the president of the United States.

In other words, he has more juice with broader public than Mitch McConnell or John Boehner, each of whom would have won about 41 percent of the vote in a presidential election. Romney got (ain't it delicious!?) 47 percent.

So what could he do? I assume Obama is attempting to enlist him to try to get him to say a few constructive things nudging the GOP toward sanity on some fiscal matters. Of course that's a little hard for him to do considering the non-sane positions he took during the campaign. But it would be nice to hear him say some of those reasonably sensible things that so many insiders persuaded themselves he really believes deep down.

In fact, all this raises an interesting Romney character question. Now that he's done with politics, will he ever just say what he actually believes about anything beyond the "moocher class," the only matter on which he seemed to make his genuine views known? Will anyone care? Maybe. Al Gore and John Kerry lost presidential elections, but they're still important figures (obvious Gore is the better parallel here, since Kerry still holds office). Romney can be, too, if he wants to be. He could start this week by telling Republicans, hey, gang, let's drop the unceasing obstinacy.

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Michael TomaskySpecial Correspondent

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