The media may have thought that Mitt Romney was a finalist for the job of John McCain's running mate. But Romney himself recently told NEWSWEEK that he wasn't so easily fooled. "I had a sense it wasn't going to be me," he said in an interview with Stumper and assorted colleagues last week in St. Paul.

For months, speculation to the contrary was intense. On June 30, the Politico's Mike Allen reported that "Romney is at the top of the vice presidential prospect list for John McCain," and 50 days later, on Aug. 20, both Time's Mark Halperin and New York magazine's John Heilemann wondered aloud--or, rather, online--whether McCain's ongoing flirtation with pro-choice pols like Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge was really "a bit of elaborate gamesmanship designed to make Evangelicals more grateful than they otherwise might be for the selection" of Romney, "a running mate who, despite being pro-life, the religious right has some qualms about."

But as it turns out, Romney knew he wouldn't get the nod by early August--well before that second round of buzz began. How exactly? Only days after interviewing with McCain veep vetter A. B Culvahouse in mid-July, Romney was informed by the Arizona senator's campaign staff that he'd be shipping off to Denver on Aug. 26 to make the case against Barack Obama during the Democratic convention. Although contemporaneous press accounts said Romney was still "under serious consideration as ... McCain's running mate," Mitt says the assignment pretty much sealed his fate. "I was told by my own staff beforehand they McCain wouldn't send his VP to the Denver convention," he said. "So when I found out I was going, I said, 'OK, that makes sense'." Likewise, McCain also booked Romney on "Meet the Press" the Sunday prior to St. Paul--another new-veep no-no. Asked how it felt to hear the entire political press corps saying "it's Romney" when he was certain the opposite was true, the former Massachusetts governor admitted he was somewhat amused. "I was surprised to read all the conversations right up until the end," he said. "I was asking my staff how I could go online and bet against myself. I thought it was [Minnesota Gov. Tim] Pawlenty, or maybe [former Pennsylvania governor] Tom Ridge."

Shows how much we know.

Ever the good soldier, Romney was bullish on the woman who beat him out, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, saying he was "struck by how calm, confident, poised and sharp she is." When pressed to assess how she would help McCain in Michigan--the place where many politicos believed Romney could boost the GOP to victory thanks to his family roots and father's former governorship--Mitt deflected the somewhat painful question (oh, what could have been!) with a bit of self-deprecation. First, he suggested the blue-collar workers in the economically depressed Great Lakes State wouldn't vote for a pair of pols with more than a dozen homes between them, confessing that "I have one too many houses at least." Then Romney touted Palin's superior appeal to Michigan's many sportsmen. "I shot rabbits, she hunted moose," he said. "So there's no comparison there."

There's still time before 2012, Mitt. There's still time.