BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Mitt Romney failed to win the Republican presidential nomination because of inexperience and inconsistency, according to GOP political guru Karl Rove.

Rove, who grew up in Utah and masterminded President George W. Bush's election and re-election campaigns, told those gathered at the Television Critics Association press tour that the former Massachusetts governor didn't understand what he was getting into.

"Running for president is unlike any other political task that anybody has ever taken on," he said. "So running for governor of Massachusetts, while it prepares you to some degree for running for president, there's nothing like running for president.

"Mitt Romney's problem was uneven performance."

Rove stepped down as a top White House adviser in August 2007 and signed on as a Fox News Channel commentator. And he had high praise for Romney's campaign organization — its fundraising, organization, state committees, volunteers and more.

In those areas, "He did probably the best job of any of the Republican candidates. But when it came to his own performance, the kinds of thing he was used to doing when he ran in a relatively small geographic area over a relatively short period of time didn't serve him well in running across the large number of states over a very long, extended period of time. And, as a result, it was an uneven performance.

"You'd hear from people, 'You know, I was in a private meeting with Mitt Romney and, boy, he was great!' And the next day you'd hear from people saying, 'You know, I was in a private pitch by Mitt Romney and, oh, he was terrible."'

Rove said he believed Romney's exit from the GOP campaign was a high point for the former Massachusetts governor, offering high praise for his speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference.

"If he had made his previous speeches as eloquent and committed and passionate and cohesive and coherent and informed, then he wouldn't have had to make that speech withdrawing from the race," Rove said.

In other comments:

• Rove criticized the decision by presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., to stop wearing a flag lapel pin. (Obama said, in part, that it "became a substitute for true patriotism.")

"I think it went one step too far to say that wearing a flag lapel pin was not true patriotism," Rove said. "For a lot of people, it is true patriotism. And that kind of judgmental comment, I thought was inappropriate. I don't suggest it's un-American, but it was questioning, inherently, the patriotism of people who said, 'You know what? I'm going to put a flag on my lapel or on my sleeve or on my uniform."'