Well I do think he was more surprised than anyone that he was the nominee:)though I think he did want to be president. It seemed that once Obama was named, he was resigned to losing and had to helplessly watch as his hopes were washed away by the relentless deluge of an historic election to which he was only an observer with zero to stop the inevitable.
Excellent observation, and I haven’t seen this view before. He decided to keep going along with the flow to get along. People in AZ are nuts, if you ask me.