Lindy's friend rob delaney's been great at keeping us abreast of all this. He let us know Forbes did a spinoff of the Politico piece very much worth seeing: "How Bain Would Fix Mitt Romney's Campaign".

Romney is way too smart not to know that he should be doing these things — so there must be a deeper reason for his flailing. Ultimately it may not be so much that Romney does not know how to manage his campaign well but that he does not really want to win.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2…

The ironic thing is that as bad as Romney is, he's not the problem for the GOP. The GOP base voters are the problem. They insisted on purity and dragged the party so far to the right that even conservative-leaning moderates are offended.

This is probably their best chance, too. The economy will be better in four years, and demographics will have shifted even more in the long-term favor of the Democrats. They can't keep pitching their message to an aging and shriking pool of angry white guys. Any advantage they gain by an open election in 2016 is more than offset by these factors. If they don't win this year, I don't see how they win a presidential election until they gain a completely new coalition of voters. I'm sure they'll have good years winning back seats in Congress, but it's hard to see how they win the presidency without changing dramatically.

In the Politico article, it said that the following quote was going to be in Romney's RNC speech but was pulled by Stevens.

“The incumbent president is trying to lower the expectations of our nation to the sorry level of his own achievement. He only wins if you settle.”

Wow, what a powerful quote. I disagree with it, but can you imagine how the discussion of this election would be different right now if Romney had said it. It would be played over and over and would be quoted by all your conservative friends on Facebook. Pundits would be talking about whether or not a vote for Obama is a vote for settling for less. It's just that good of a quote, and I thank Stevens heavily for giving us the speech that Romney actually gave.

"Economy Bad, Rmoney Good" may be a pathetic plan, but that doesn't mean it can't win. People are stupid

Also, voter suppression and vote count fraud. See: 2000, 2004.

@2: I know you meant "shrinking", but a "shriking pool of angry white guys" is such an awesome image that I must prefer the typo.

@1
"Ultimately it may not be so much that Romney does not know how to manage his campaign well but that he does not really want to win."

Yeah? So you won. Big deal. I wasn't even TRYING to win.
That's the biggest WTF from Forbes, ever.
Why would anyone put that much money and effort and time in trying to be the loser?

"Either that, or he has a huge political blind spot."

Yeah.
It's called "a sense of entitlement".

He's not running on any policy.
He's running because he wants to be the POTUS.
Facts be damned!

@3: if by "powerful", you mean ridiculous,untrue, and in line with the rest of the talking points they're flogging, then yes, it was very "powerful". good thing they didn't use it - talk about a game changer.