One of the main problems with Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy was that it was never clear what he wanted to do if elected.

Mr. Romney’s case for himself was heavily bound up in his careers in consulting and private equity. He was the skilled manager who could identify problems, root out dysfunction and make anything work better. The guy who rescued the Olympics. The guy who led the search for his co-worker’s missing daughter. The Romney pitch was, in large part, about being manager-in-chief. It was a pitch with little policy content.

That didn’t fly in 2012. But it might actually work pretty well in 2016.

The 2012 election had to be about the big “what is government for?” questions because huge policy decisions loomed in 2013. The Affordable Care Act would be implemented, or not; parts of the Bush tax cuts would expire, or not; entitlements would be greatly reformed in an effort to shrink deficits, or not. A large fiscal adjustment was needed, if not right away, sometime within the next few years.

Mitt Romney, looking very much in campaign mode, with the attorney general of Georgia, Sam Olens, in Atlanta last week.

CURTIS COMPTON / ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Whichever candidate won was going to have a lot of power to determine the shape of the federal government for years to come, so he had to talk about what he would have the government do.

Barack Obama defended the principle that government ought to take a strong and active role in the economy, by using fiscal policy to offset the effects of recessions, by regulating the financial sector more tightly, by offering a near-universal health care entitlement, and by taxing the rich more.

Mr. Romney proved an awkward messenger for Republicans’ big idea that the government should tax and spend less, and not discourage people from working and supporting themselves. The “47 percent” speech — essentially, a declaration that we’d have to grow the economy by making Americans less lazy — was the clearest example of Mr. Romney offering a big-picture vision that did not sell.

That failure sounds like a good reason for Mr. Romney not to run again. But in 2016, he might actually be able to bracket the big ideological questions and run on the small stuff.