It’s starting to look needy, buddy: 

Since forgoing a third presidential bid in January, Romney has insisted he has no interest in being a kingmaker in the 2016 race. But as the contenders jockey for his favor — and, in some cases, chase his lead on thorny issues — it’s beginning to look like the 2016 Romney primary is well underway.

And he seems more liberated to speak out than when he was fighting for the White House himself.

Yes. Liberated. It was that mean, mean PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION that duct-taped Mitt’s mouth shut and so unjustly constrained him. Now he is free, free as the birds of the air!

(Let’s not get started on “fighting for the White House,” like it was the War of 1812 or some shit.)

“Given the chaos that’s going on on the Republican side of things, he has some ability to bring some order to the chaos and help remind people what big issues actually do matter — and to be a little bit of a rudder for these candidates, who he recognizes can sometimes get seared by the winds of the primary process,” said GOP strategist Katie Packer, who was Romney’s deputy campaign manager in 2012.

Sweetie. This is … sweetie.

(You guys recall stories like this about John Kerry during 2008, right? The “John Kerry primary” in which former Kerry advisers were asked how favorably their previous boss compared with the present Loser McLosersons on the “big issues,” right?)

What “big issues” matter to Mitt Romney, pray tell? What big issues are those CLEARLY INFERIOR current candidates neglecting as they do their disgusting pandering to the voters of America?

Romney was one of the first prominent Republicans to bluntly call for taking down the Confederate flag in front of the South Carolina state capitol after the racially motivated massacre of nine people at a Charleston church last month.

[snip]

Over the weekend, he denounced Donald Trump’s suggestion that immigrants coming across the border from Mexico were rapists and criminals, saying the remarks were harmful to the image of the Republican Party.

So Mitt Romney … said a flag that flown exclusively by meth-mouths who think “the homosexual” is still a way to refer to actual human beings should be taken down from one of the many poles on which it flies after a white supremacist murdered nine fucking people.

Then, in another magnificent stand for American democracy, he opined that Donald Trump is a fuckwitted idiot.

Damn, Mitt, you on FIRE these days, now that you are no longer restrained by the desire to seek the presidency!

Romney has taken pains not to show favoritism, but he is clearly closer to candidates like Rubio — who worked hard for Romney from the early days of his campaign — than Jeb Bush, with whom he shares a cordial but not close relationship.

He’s working hard to remain neutral. He’s a hard neutral.

In an interview with Fox’s Megyn Kelly from Deer Valley, Utah, before that donor retreat in June, Romney insisted he would stay “forcefully neutral” in the Republican primary and would not give his stamp of approval to any of the contenders.

Which I’m sure comes as a profound disappointment to them, given his amazing popularity and ability to rally the Republican base. 

A.