Romney in the sense that he refused to deviate from gentleman politician in running against Obama. I.e., he refused to call bullshit. The trade off was boarishmess in exchange for willingness to fight back.
Clinton in the sense that she was and is a horrible choice. Trump was still a better choice than her.
So, there was a rational basis to elect him at the time. There’s also an argument that he did what he said as a politician, which was novel. Downside of course was expanding narcissism and megalomania.
Now, DeSantis seems like a better option.