Mitt Romney: The Man From Nowhere

In as much as it is possible to feel sympathy for a man seeking the American presidency while possessing a $250m fortune, Mitt Romney is an unusually pitiful figure. He may yet win the Michigan primary tonight and he remains the most probable eventual nominee but there is a sense, right now anyway, in which whatever happens next Romney will leave Michigan a diminished figure.

Whatever happens tonight he will retain a hefty lead in the delegate count (and he will have won Arizona too) but Michigan, no matter how rightly-sized its trees may be, has hurt Romney. It’s no way to treat a man who calls the Wolverine state his home. But is it really his home? Where is he from? What is his hinterland? Answer these questions – or explain why Romney cannot answer them – and you begin to appreciate, I think, why Romney hasn’t yet knocked-out his impossible rivals.