This is what I was thinking but was unable to articulate

TPM's analysis of Mitt's sitch

Second, and a bit more intangibly,[Mitt Romney] running around the country in a long twilight struggle with Rick Santorum is just ... how to put it? inherently demeaning and diminishing. It's like struggling to land a one pound fish or searching for the way out of a paper bag. People see you doing that and you just look weak and feckless, even pitiful.