How I Reluctantly Learned to Like Mitt Romney

What with Mitt Romney's "Ken doll mannerisms" and "wanton use of the word 'gosh,'" Andrew Ferguson spent a lot of this campaign disliking the guy. But since Romney is now officially the GOP presidential nominee and has an "excellent chance" of winning, Ferguson figured he must be missing something that his fellow Republicans weren't and set out to figure out what it was, he writes in the Weekly Standard. He was finally dragged over to Romney's side after reading The Real Romney, written by two Boston Globe reporters.

There he read of Romney's '60s activities—protesting the protesters at Stanford, handing out copies of Think and Grow Rich to his friends, refusing to be photographed kissing his bride at his wedding. And his almost-too-good-to-be-true family life: family dinners, family basketball games, family skit nights. But it was the stories of Romney's kindness that really won Ferguson over, like the one in which Romney provides a wonderful Christmas for a family whose sons were seriously injured in a car accident. Yes, Romney has bad points, and he's certainly "a politician." But he's also "a good guy," Ferguson concludes. Click for his full column. (More Mitt Romney stories.)