Five lines from Frank Bruni's column in today's New York Times:

1. Romney's political ascent and presidential campaign tell the remarkable tale of a suitor profoundly ill suited to the seduction at hand, a salesman whose enthusiasm has seldom been instantly or expansively reciprocated.

2. You bake your cake with the ingredients you have. Romney's a strange cake.

3. He's a man of serious abilities. But he seems unable to accept that a presidential campaign demands more than a résumé. It demands an audible heartbeat, a palpable soul.

4. You can't turn venture capital into "Terms of Endearment."

5. He's a font of precisely the sorts of gaffes that a 140-character news universe spotlights.