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With the presidential election seven weeks from tomorrow, it's clear that Mitt Romney is not yet where he wants to be. President Obama appears to have an advantage -- though his lead is hardly insurmountable -- and there's growing pessimism on the right.
Making matters considerably worse, however, is the evidence that Team Romney is itself in disarray. It's hard enough to defeat a well-liked incumbent with a lengthy record of accomplishments, but doing so with a campaign operation divided against itself makes Romney's challenge that much more difficult.
While "talk of infighting within the Romney headquarters" has been "percolating for months," we've clearly entered a new stage. Politico published a lengthy piece last night filled with unnamed aides pointing fingers and casting blame -- for Romney's muddled message, ineffective ads, disjointed convention, and useless speeches.
The number of Republican insiders and campaign staffers who seemed eager to dish to Politico about their dissatisfaction only reinforced the scope of the underlying problem.
It gets worse. Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei also report that Team Romney, just 50 days before the election, is going to "abruptly" shift its strategy, after Romney advisers concluded "they had to make a painful course correction."
And what strategy will the Republican campaign "abruptly" shift to? According to BuzzFeed, Romney will focus on mobilizing the GOP's right-wing base with an emphasis on "patriotism and God." And according to the New York Times, aides said Romney "would present a series of speeches, television commercials and events promoting his five-point economic policy."
So, Romney staffers agree there will be a shift in the campaign's direction, but disagree with one another as to which direction.
The talk about Romney's inevitable electoral demise still seems premature, but when it's mid-September and campaign insiders are turning on one another, and disagreeing with one another about the campaign's basic strategy, there's clearly a significant problem. We expect this from a campaign after it has lost, not before.
What's more, this isn't just inside baseball for campaign junkies; we're learning something important. One of Mitt Romney's principal selling points is that he has tremendous managerial skills thanks to his lucrative private-sector experience. Vote for Romney, the argument goes, because he knows how to run a major operation, and will be competent as head of the executive branch.
And yet, Romney appears to be struggling due in part to a failure in leadership. What does that tell us about the kind of president he'd be?
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It should come as no surprise that those who are hostile to the very idea of effective governance, prove unable to effectively govern themselves. Based on events of the last 24 hours, and 24 weeks, it appears that the problems with the GOP are fundamental, not incidental. When things like this happen over and over again, they are not incidental, they are structural. Furthermore, it is beginning to look like the problem here is not just structural to the candidates themselves, but fundamental to the governing ideology of The entire Party. "Hostility to being governed," in any way has gone so far and so deep on the right, that the right can no longer govern even ITSELF. Ideological preoccupation has so isolated The Party from factuality, that it is evidently non-functional as a credible political entity.
You can't believe a liar. So there's no way for us to know if this article is true.
More high quality reporting from MSNBC -- sounds like Fox
Romney behind? That is the narrative a majority of the press who is in the tank for Obama are trying to make stick. Sadly it does not fit reality. They are even skewing their polls to try and make the narrative fit:
'The polls are specifically designed to drive a narrative that Obama is surging and Romney is struggling. Increasingly, though, the polls are having to go to ridiculous efforts to support this meme. Friday's CBS/New York Times poll, for example, uses a D+13 sample of registered voters. This is absurd.
In 2008, an historic election wave for Democrats, the electorate was D+7. In 2004, when George W. Bush won reelection, the electorate was evenly split. In other words, D+0. Repeat after me; the Democrat share of the electorate is not going to double this year. Given the well-noted enthusiasm edge for Republicans this year, the electorate is going to be far closer to the 2004 model than 2008. Any poll trying to replicate the 2008 is going to artificially inflate Obama's support.'
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/16/cbs-obama-leads-in-d-13-poll
I think that a lot (well not a lot, only 28% support Obama enthusiastically, while 43% are strongly against him, a -15% Republican leaning enthusasm gap according to Rasmussen) but a lot in the press and here will have to take off their cheerleader skirts and drop their pom poms and stare in disbelief as their oversampling of democrat polls do not come true come November. Hell, they may even be hurting themselves. Squishy Obama leaning voters may not even show up thinking that this in the bag.
Let's put up any smoke screen -- Romney can't manage his campaign, Romney's comment on the 47% not paying taxes -- to divert the discussion from Obama's failings. MSNBC does not deserve to be considered a news agency but a PR firm for Obama and Democratic Party.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Romney's Tea Party
The tea is weak and poured with an unsteady hand. Romney has forgotten the sugar, and, embarrassingly, is mixing milk with lemon. The Romney campaign is curdling. Tea partiers,who have finally earned a place at the Romney table, doubt the sincerity of the host. His most authentic tea party moment was offending the British, and that is the wrong tea party. There will be no shortage of mad hatters if, as is increasingly likely, Romney loses. We can expect a Republican food fight.
On the other side, Democrats are enjoying double lattes. Not only is Romney running cold, but super pacs keep pouring money on the same tea bag. With a candidate as well know as the president, the law of diminishing returns precludes a few extra ads from impacting the voters' verdict. Money flowing to Romney siphons off funds, which could preserve, or enhance, the Republican congressional majority.
Is it too soon to chill the champagne?
Let's be REALLY CAREFUL, people. Get involved in the LOCAL Congreswsional and Senate Races -- ROVE is dumping $100 million ++ into these races to hamstring the President again! We have to ELECT PROGRESSIVES!!