Here’s Walter Shapiro in TNR on the most boring primary ever, this one (which he thinks Romney will win):

Romney inspires all the enthusiasm of “Vegetables Are Our Friends” week in an elementary school cafeteria. My nominee for the typical New Hampshire Romney voter is Dwight Corning, a recent transplant from Connecticut who moved to Dover after he retired from an electronic firm. “I think Romney’s reliable,” Corning said after the rally in Rochester. “I don’t think he’ll do anything crazy when he gets in.” A vote is a vote, but Corning sounded about as passionate as if he had been asked to recommend a CPA.

And here’s Michael Gerson in the WaPo on Romney:

Romney is temperamentally conservative but not particularly ideological. He reserves his enthusiasm for quantitative analysis and organizational discipline. He seems to view the cultural and philosophic debates that drive others as distractions from the real task of governing — making systems work.

His competitors have attempted to portray Romney’s ideological inconsistency over time as a character failure. It hasn’t worked, mainly because Romney is a man of exemplary character — deeply loyal to his faith, his family and his country. But he clearly places political ideology in a different category of fidelity. Like Dwight Eisenhower, Romney is a man of vague ideology and deep values. In political matters, he is empirical and pragmatic. He studies problems, assesses risks, calculates likely outcomes. Those expecting Romney to be a philosophic leader will be disappointed. He is a management consultant, and a good one.

Has the moment of the management consultant arrived in American politics? In our desperate drought of public competence, Romney has a strong case to make.

The two quotes highlight, among other things, some of the differences between liberals and conservatives. Liberals were wowed by Obama during the 2008 campaign; he excited and inspired them. Shapiro considers Romney dull, and perhaps he is in many ways. But although conservatives like a charismatic candidate as well (Ronald Reagan, for example), they tend to be less focused on that sort of emotional reaction. And perhaps the entire nation is less interested in such a thing now, A.O. (after Obama).

Shapiro interprets New Hampshirite Corning’s statements as a lack of enthusiasm. But it could just as easily be relief. Maybe we don’t need an inspirational, charismatic, president. Maybe—as Gerson indicates—we need someone who is competent and who can lead.