It might be futile in the end, but there would be great honor in it — and the nation needs him

This is a miserable presidential season.  Faced with the choice of either Mr. Donald Trump (who apparently clinched the Republican nomination today) or the cynical return of Clinton Inc., some of us are confronting the most painful electoral dilemma of our lives.

And we’re not alone.  While certain Republican politicians — even some whom Mr. Trump has grievously abused and insulted — are now cravenly kneeling to kiss the Leader’s ring, polling data indicate that a majority of Americans deeply dislike both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump.

And they do so with very good reason.

Just yesterday, for instance, members of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy that is Barack Obama’s State Department delivered a serious blow to Mrs. Clinton’s already severely limited credibility and moral reputation.  (See here and here.)

But Charles Murray explains why declaring Mr. Trump the lesser of two evils just doesn’t work for many conservatives.  And David French outlines how it’s not enough to say that at least there’s a chance that Mr. Trump would be better than Mrs. Clinton.

Meanwhile, remarks from Trump’s own campaign manager illustrate very nicely why some of us are disinclined to believe any of his campaign rhetoric, including his list of the people that he might conceivably consider (among others!) for for the Supreme Court.

And there’s this, from Ben Shapiro:  “How Could a Trump Presidency Go Wrong? Let’s Count the Ways”

Mona Charen has laid out some of the reasons for her judgment (and mine) that “Donald Trump Doesn’t Have the Character to Be President.”

I’ve called Mr. Trump an unprincipled, unreflective, crass, vulgar, ignorant, demagogic, authoritarian statist.  And I stand by that judgment.  Which is one of the reasons he worries me so much:

“In Donald Trump, the Cult of the Presidency Finds Its L. Ron Hubbard”

“Should Never-Trump People ‘Get Over It’?” asks Mona Charen.  And her answer is a resounding No.

“Sorry, I Still Won’t Ever Vote for Trump,” says the prominent conservative writer Jonah Goldberg.  And Maggie Gallagher, the social conservative writer and activist, has published an essay entitled “Why I Cannot Support Trump.”

I agree with them.

I understand those who, faced with Clinton v. Trump, have reluctantly and unenthusiastically decided to go with him in order to keep the Clintons out of the White House.  However, I also understand those conservatives — I know a few of them — who’ve concluded, to their horror, that they’ll have to vote for Mrs. Clinton in order to protect the presidency and the nation from Donald Trump.

But I simply can’t take either of those paths.  I just can’t do it.

And I really, really don’t understand those purported conservatives who’ve supported Mr. Trump from the beginning.  They seem to me to have betrayed almost everything conservatism stands for.  I’ll never trust them again, or respect them.

But I’m left with trying to figure out what on earth I can do in this situation.  Which is why my ears perked up at the sheer possibility of a third-party run by Governor Mitt Romney, the only man with the name-recognition and the fundraising ability to mount even a remotely plausible challenge at this very late date to the Clinton-Trump horror that confronts us.

I posted an initial blog entry on the subject two nights ago:  “Mitt Romney, Run for President!”

For what little it’s worth, I pledged my support to him — as, over the past few days, have others.

Even the influential conservative blogger Erick Erickson, who opposed Governor Romney in both 2008 and 2012, is now imploring him to enter the race for the good of the country.  So, too, this writer at RedState.com.

Jennifer Rubin, essentially the token conservative at the Washington Post, has been thinking seriously about a Romney run (for example, here and here), as is her counterpart at the New York Times, Ross Douthat.

In fact, Jonah Goldberg is musing about the possibility of a four-person presidential race, in which not only Mitt Romney runs but Bernie Sanders sticks around still longer to make life miserable for the Clintons and to interfere with her coronation.  He thinks it possible — and wouldn’t this be a glorious irony? — that Bernie could put Mitt in the White House.

W. James Antle is thinking about “How Mitt Romney can still take down Donald Trump.”

But will it happen?  Will Mitt Romney do this?  The odds of his success are very low.  But it would be an exceedingly honorable thing.

Bill Kristol says that Governor Romney is “thinking seriously” about the possibility.  And, for what it’s worth, I have a personal source who also suggests that he’s giving it real consideration.

I hope that’s true, and I hope he does it.

A Romney run, as Mona Charen says, would be “A Fighting Chance for Integrity.”