Romney

There's a new story about how Romney's campaign is in disarray, enthusiastically being noted by the Librul blogosphere.  And, not only there:  Here's a telling/damming/whatever recap of some just-now David Frum tweets, via DeLong:

This AM's Politico story about Stuart Stevens being to blame for Romney campaign's troubles utterly misses the point. The Romney campaign has a messaging problem because it has a policy problem. The policy problem is that the Romney campaign offers nothing but bad news to hard-pressed Americans and the broader middle class.

How do you message: I'm doing away w Medicaid over the next 10 yrs, Medicare after that, to finance a cut in the top rate of tax to 28%? I don't care if you hire the people who produce the ATT ads that make my wife cry, there's no lipsticking that pig. The problem isn't the campaign leadership; it's the party's followership.

Over course of campaign, Romney has changed from a pragmatic, capable manager into a dog-whistling culture warrior. Candidate cd have and shd have resisted that pressure - but it's rich for ppl who demanded the change to complain about consequences.

I thought Stevens' - drafted Tampa speech did good job of humanizing the man, Mitt Romney. But voters do care about the q: what will this presidency do for me? And "dick you over" is not a winning answer.

Krugman says, well, what would you expect?

Vitus says:  Would that all this optimism is warranted.  The strength of the current wave of anti-fact, anti-science, anti-legal, pro-christianista, pro-war medievalness which has taken over the seething mass of 'muraka these days has been unexpected, unprecedented, and unnerving.  Vitus has tried to take solace in the fact that his fellow Americans did the right thing in 2008 by turning against the Rumsfeldian Neoconism that was W-ness fairly dramatically, even electing a black man to the White House!

However, as the stinking malignancies of Cantorism, Gingrichism, Palinism, Bachmanism, not to mention the anointment of Ayn Rand's suplicant, Mr. Ryan, as Pope of Galtian Economics, have metasticised hugely in the last months, 'ol Vitus has lost a much hope.

The current situation, with Obama leading Romney by up to five points in most surveys, and now  the surfacing of the possibility of the Dem's retaining and even increasing their lead in the senate, reminds us of our feelings on Saturday night, when we, in the gathering darkness, watched the glorious and brave Stanford footballers keep on keeping on to finally defeat evil USC!  We were never sure the win was in the bag, and still, really, aren't.