The accelerating simplicity of President Obama's reelection strategy, as phrased by a "Democratic operative":
The thing that is unique about Romney ... is that if you close your eyes and have somebody read the attacks on Romney it would be impossible to know if it’s coming from Perry, [Rick] Santorum, the DNC, [Democratic strategist Bill] Burton or [Obama spokesman Ben] LaBolt: that he doesn’t believe anything, that you can’t trust him, that he’s a flip-flopping weasel.
In other words, the Obama campaign is unburdened by most presidential campaigns' foremost, and most formidable, challenge: defining the opposition early, simply, and negatively. For as the operative added:
The fight [Romney's] having in the primary is the fight he’s gonna have in the general.
Mitt will be exhausted by next summer, while Obama's prep-work and framing are being done for him -- by the former governor's Republican opponents.
Meanwhile, Romney can rely on the exceptionally charmless policies and downright ghoulish personalities of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Eric Cantor to further depress the Republican brand generically. My guess is that the Romney staff is frantically calling the GOP's congressional conference and leaving the message, "Put a fucking sock in it"; but, well, boys will be boys. Especially these boys.
I tell you, I almost feel sorry for Romney. He's willing to be blue, be red, be a McGovern or Eisenhower, be a progressive or pseudoconservative -- to be anything and everything he can be -- and yet he's blocked at every turn. And God knows he makes a lot of those.