I never predicted things would move this quickly and decisively against Romney, but polls seem to be taking another dump on him. That means his VP pick is more important than ever, in the meantime Mittens issued a statement that damn near sounds like a plea for mercy:
TPM— “Our campaign would be — helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon — business or family or taxes or things of that nature,” Romney said, according to excerpts of an upcoming interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd released Friday.
Romney said he would prefer the campaigns “only talk about issues,” and claimed that “our ads haven’t gone after the president personally. … We haven’t dredged up the old stuff that people talked about last time around. We haven’t gone after the personal things.”
Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul offered up a broader take on whether Romney was really suggesting that his career at Bain Capital — the crux of his argument that he is better equipped to handle the economy — should be considered off-limits.
Translation, despite the whining from traditional media and millionaire pundits on both sides, about hitting below the belt with questions about taxes paid at Bain, and ads about people getting laid off because of Bain, and on and on, those tactics appear to working really well. Who could have possibly predicted that, eh?
Romney would now very much like the WH and associated pacs to please, please stop doing any of the things that are working, at least until such time as Mitt is ready to respond or change the subject. Aside from the fact that that’s not going to happen — Team Romney is inviting more simply by saying this — it’s not going to play well with the he-man gun-toting keyboard kommandos that make up a big chunk of the GOP base
May he find the mercy he provided to the employees of Bain’s victims.
@Gregory in Seattle, #1:
I now have visions of the Republican party gutting him, selling his assets, running up loans on his credit to unmanageable proportions, harvesting his healthy organs, and finally dumping him on the side of the street in a backless hospital gown with not quite enough change for a phone call in a paper cup.
This is from a man who lets FOX news help him get his views across. Does he really expect the president’s supporters wait until they have been hit by a steaming pile of bovine scat from the superpacs before they start the fight. This is a modern US election. Being a good sport and a gentleman is what is expected after you lose the election. The winner will always be forgiven.
Shorter Mitt “Willy ‘Mittens’ Romano” Romney:
Yes, I know it’s been four years and everyone’s still pissed off about Wall Street, but why do we have to bring my business career into it?
I was hoping to catch a verb to go along with “attacks based upon — business or family or taxes or things of that nature” but I suspect the one the editor cut out had to do with avoiding those things. Isn’t “business or family or taxes” exactly what the Rethuglicans are all about these days?
Well, today’s http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ makes me happy.
Geez. When do the “Vote for the Wuss” bumperstickers appear?
@Zinc Avenger #2 – I distinctly said, “the mercy he provided,” not “better than he deserves.”
A while ago Rupert Murdoch tweeted that he was concerned with the lack of professionalism in the Romney campaign, and I strongly suspect that it was this what he was talking about – apparently, they had absolutely no back-up plan on the Bain and tax return issues. Their only tactic was “if somebody brings it up, we’ll declare it’s not a legitimate issue”. The idea that the public might simply refuse to accept that apparently never occurred to them, because they themselves were so convinced of their worldview (which is the danger of surrounding yourself with an echo chamber). Rupes knew better than anybody that that wasn’t going to fly, that’s why he urgently suggested more pros in the campaign staff. Fortunately, his suggestion was ignored.
I didn’t think anything Romney said could shock me any more, but I was wrong.
After spending months willfully misrepresenting anything the President says, and outright lying about much of it, he now whines that he doesn’t like some of the things said about him?
Truly astonishing
gshelly @ 9
Amen. Politics is a game where mudballs are trump. After you have pitched a few (or a bunch) it is disingenuous to complain about being hit by one.
machintelligence @ 10
Then we should replace the primaries with a tournament of
Brockian Ultra-Cricket.