Tag Archives: romney campaign

Signs of a campaign that may be about to lose

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Political Wire: Matthew Dowd told ABC News that every time “you feel a losing campaign, these three things happen”:

  1. “The first thing happens is, don’t believe — the public polls are wrong. That’s the first sign of a campaign that’s about to lose.”
  2. The second thing, we’re going to change the nature of the electorate, and you’re not seeing it reflected in the polls.”
  3. “And the third thing is, the only poll that counts is Election Day. When you hear those things, you know you’re about to lose.”

Here’s some other things that also might happen when you feel you’re about to lose:

4. Your campaign, Karl Rove, and Haley Barbour begin blaming a hurricane for breaking your “momentum.”
5. This is after Dick Morris said you were going to “win in a landslide.”
6. Brit Hume admits on air to being “puzzled” by state polls which do not reflect the company line about your landslide.
7. You stop talking to the press.
8. Eric Cantor won’t defend your lying Jeep ad. He will claim he “has not seen the ad.”
9. You become the first major presidential candidate to not participate in the Presidential Youth Debate since it began in 1996.
10. The former Republican president isn’t campaigning for you — he’s headlining some fancy Cayman Island Investment Summit.
11. Glenn Beck appears mysteriously at one of your rallies, doesn’t talk to you, and then leaves without comment.
12. Your running mate campaigns in his own state, for his current job, two days before Election Day.
13. Your wife gets teary and emotional when introducing you onstage now.
14. Your first choice for VP and the keynote speaker at your convention is hanging out with and praising the guy you’re running against.
15. Rupert Murdoch then threatens your first choice for VP and the keynote speaker at your convention with getting thrown out of the club if he doesn’t publicly re-declare his undying fealty to you.
16. Some of your running mate’s allies discuss his future, on the condition of anonymity, if you don’t win.
17. Erick Erickson pens a “things I’ll still be thankful for” post even if Obama wins.
18. Not allowing people to leave your rallies, citing “security concerns” when others suggest you’re worried about crowd numbers.
19. Your running mate washes already clean dishes in an empty soup kitchen for a photo-op.
20. You use the disaster of a hurricane for a photo op, to collect food for a charity that specifically asks that no food items be donated.

Make it so: VOTE!!

GOP’s closing argument, cont: Vote Republican or the economy gets it

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Andrew Sullivan: That’s Romney’s final pitch:

In what his campaign billed as his “closing argument,” Mitt Romney warned Americans that a second term for President Obama would have apocalyptic consequences for the economy in part because his own party would force a debt ceiling disaster. “Unless we change course, we may well be looking at another recession,” Romney told a crowd in West Allis, Wisconsin. Romney said that Obama “promised to be a post-partisan president, but he became the most partisan” and that his bitter relations with the House GOP could threaten the economy. 

Or as Dan Savage put it, “We are no longer a democracy. We’re a hostage situation.”

Ezra addressed this argument earlier in the week:

While it’s true that President Romney could expect more cooperation from congressional Republicans, in the long term, a vote against Obama on these grounds is a vote for more of this kind of gridlock. Politicians do what wins them elections. If this strategy wins Republicans the election, they’ll employ it next time they face a Democratic president, too, and congressional Democrats will use it against the next Republicans. Rewarding the minority for doing everything in their power to make the majority fail sets up disastrous incentives for the political system. 

 

Related: 

Paul Krugman: The Blackmail Caucus

Since their ideas and plans are unpopular, the GOP’s closing argument: Lies and Blackmail!

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Paul Krugman: The Blackmail Caucus

“If President Obama is re-elected, health care coverage will expand dramatically, taxes on the wealthy will go up and Wall Street will face tougher regulation. If Mitt Romney wins instead, health coverage will shrink substantially, taxes on the wealthy will fall to levels not seen in 80 years and financial regulation will be rolled back.

Given the starkness of this difference, you might have expected to see people from both sides of the political divide urging voters to cast their ballots based on the issues. Lately, however, I’ve seen a growing number of Romney supporters making a quite different argument. Vote for Mr. Romney, they say, because if he loses, Republicans will destroy the economy…”

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Don’t negotiate with the terrorists: VOTE!!

Trickle-down disaster relief

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via: 6dogs9cats

At this point, the Romney Campaign is pretty much telling the Red Cross to F*ck Off

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After Mitt Romney’s campaign rally faux “storm relief” event / photo op on Tuesday in Ohio, the Red Cross has stated that they do not want or accept donations of items and goods like food, clothes, blankets, etc. Not only do goods create a huge burden on volunteers because of the necessary storage, sorting and distribution, but many items may not even be needed. It’s a request that has been posted to their website for … forever.

Of course there are no photo-op moments in writing out a check to the Red Cross, so what can Team Romney do if they want press attention for pretending to help victims of the recent weather disaster?

From Zeke Miller | Buzzfeed:

“Start Packing.” The order was given by a campaign staffer about 20 minutes before Paul Ryan entered the GOP victory office here. Two dozen campaign staffers and volunteers pulled boxes from under six tables laden canned food and dry goods to be shipped to New Jersey for storm relief. Just across the tables were an equal number of reporters, videographers and photographers.

[...] In Hudson, the packing was proceeding too quickly, and the supporters wearing red “Team Wisconsin” t-shirts were given the order to slow down and then to stop to be sure there were still goods to be packed when Ryan entered. One by one the boxes were filled and loaded into a waiting U-Haul, and then they stopped to wait for the candidate.

“Thanks a lot, thanks for doing all this,” Ryan said to the supporters when he arrived. More than a hundred supporters waited outside to cheer Ryan — many of them bringing supplies — chanting “Ryan, Ryan, Ryan.”

“Go home, and if you can, donate to the Red Cross,” Ryan said outside, standing on a metal chair next to the truck. He noted that victory centers across the state and the country are accepting donations of non-perishables.

As Ryan walked back through the office to the motorcade volunteers finished packing the supplies, which are being driven to a Red Cross facility in New Jersey. As supporters walked out the door they were handed a flier about the GOP’s election night party.

The items will be driven to a Red Cross facility in NEW JERSEY. Does that destination have anything to do with Gov. Christie and Pres. Obama touring the storm’s devastation together yesterday?

The Romney Campaign is directing their supporters to go spend their money on goods that may never get to victims of Hurricane Sandy, much less help them. Romney is having his supporters engage in this craven political stunt of collecting-of-the-goods-and-packing-the-goods-and-transporting-the-goods-to-New-Jersey, when instead they could actually be helping people by donating the money they spent on props for the Romney Campaign’s photo-ops directly to the Red Cross.

Maybe Romney supporters are aware of all of this and, like their candidate, they just don’t care. Maybe they’re as opportunistic and cynical as Mitt… and maybe that’s part of the reason they support him.

http://www.redcross.org/charitable-donations

Racism in the Republican Party? That’s mind blowing!

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Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski posted a photo entitled: Man At Romney Rally Wears Mindblowingly Offensive Shirt: “The Getty Images photo was taken at a Romney/Ryan campaign event in Lancaster, Ohio on Friday. A Romney spokesperson commented that the shirt was “reprehensible and has no place in this election.””


(Getty)

Are their “minds blown” because the guy wore an offensive shirt or because he wore a shirt that loudly proclaims the racism that they’ve all participated in but agreed to not be so blatant about? It’s okay for Mitt to joke that “no one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate” (and to use Donald Trump and his flagrant birtherism for campaign cash), to run ads claiming President Obama is cutting welfare requirements to “shore up his base,” and to speak to a room full of wealthy people, like him, about how 47 percent of Americans won’t take personal responsibility for their own lives and that’s why they’ll vote for Obama.

That’s all supposedly quieter, just some harmless dog-whistling. But according to Team Romney, this shirt is “reprehensible and has no place in this election.” Uh huh — it has no place in this election NOW, four weeks from Election Day, when they’re trying to appeal to potential voters outside their circle of extremists.

But guess whose minds aren’t “blown” by this shirt? Everyone who’s been paying attention to the Republican Tea Party since 2008.

Gov. Romney was fact-checked by his own campaign: “That’s rough. That’s rough.”

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via: barackobama: Mitt Romney has been keeping the fact-checkers busy since last week’s debate.

Remember Romney pollster Neil Newhouse dismissed “facts” in August: ”Fact checkers come to this with their own sets of thoughts and beliefs, and we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.” 

Objective / observable facts are considered “thoughts and beliefs” to Team Romney. Who knows what the neocon, rightwingnut, extremist Cheney-Norquist-Corsi elements of Romney’s party would have him doing (and signing) if he were elected.

Your opportunity to register to vote may be ending this week:

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LOL Drudge-Hannity-Carlson-Romney-Hampton-Speech-Bombshell

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“People will say this has already been reported. Well, actually, it hasn’t been reported. And I know because I reported on it the first time.” — Tucker Carlson to Sean Hannity on Fox “news” last night.


via: sarahlee310

Reference:

motherjones: Charles Dharapak, AP photographer, for the win.

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images above: kohenari


via: sarahlee310

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Joan Walsh: Mainly, their complaint came down to: How dare a black president (or at the time, presidential candidate) talk to a black audience about black poverty and suffering! And the legacy of slavery, and the endurance of racism! Has he no shame? [...] Let me pull out just a few of the worst distortions. Hannity and Carlson hyped Obama’s “shout-out” to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but amazingly ignored the part of his speech where he said Wright “introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ, and I learned that my sins could be redeemed.” (This from our first Muslim president.) On Fox, Hannity played the Wright “shout-out” side by side with Obama’s later denunciation of Wright, as though the Wright remarks revealed in 2008 were already public when Obama greeted him at the 2007 speech. I shock myself at my ability to be shocked by these frauds, but that was pretty shocking.


via: wisconsinforward

The National Memo: Most observers quickly dismissed the stunt as an attempt to create a “47 percent” moment for the president that reveals his disdain for some Americans. Hannity at one point said that then-candidate Obama made derisive comments about “poor people” — when Obama was clearly speaking about the need to provide skills training to neglected groups including the homeless, veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and young adults coming out of foster care. Carlson went on Fox and Friends Wednesday morning to blame the dismissal of the tape on the “throne sniffers” in the mainstream media. Yet by morning even Drudge had dropped the story from his top headline and moved on to the next manufactured outrage.

In case you need a reminder why you should never take the Drudge Report seriously… – A ThinkProgress study of the the Drudge Report reveals the popular internet aggregator has linked 184 times to InfoWars and World Net Daily, two sites that promote the internet’s worst conspiracy theories, since June 2011. By directing millions of visitors to these websites, Drudge is providing critical financial and reputational support to publications that argue 9/11 was an inside job, FEMA is building concentration camps and President Obama was not born in the United States.

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via: paxamericana

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Does this reek of Willard flop sweat?

The Guardian: The Democratic national committee described the conservative attack as “lame”. The bigger question is whether the Romney campaign played any part in the release of the footage. Both campaigns can be guilty of dirty tricks operations, passing on material to sympathetic journalists. But Romney officials denied all knowledge and distanced itself from the video, portraying it as thin.

Igor Volsky: Romney Campaign Encourages Voters To Consider Drudge’s Race Video: Senior Romney adviser Kevin Madden refused to dismiss the race bating tactics of the Drudge Report, Fox News, and the Daily Caller, during an appearance on CBS This Morning on Wednesday, saying that voters should decide if a racially charged 2007 video of then-Senator Barack Obama discussing Hurricane Katrina is “relevant” to the election.

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DRUDGE TEASERS throughout the day:

The Drudge version:

The speech version:


Via: blogs.suntimes.com

Margaret Hartmann: A day after Mitt Romney’s 47 percent video surfaced, Matt Drudge countered with a fourteen-year-old video in which Barack Obama makes the scary-sounding admission that he believes in “redistribution.” The clip failed to get any traction, so on Tuesday he tried again, hyping a “bombshell” video of “Obama’s Other Race Speech” with help from the Daily Caller and Fox News. [...] Five years later, Carlson has finally obtained the full video, complete with some “explosive” new facts: Obama takes a slightly different tone when addressing a predominantly black audience, he once called Rev. Jeremiah Wright “a friend and a great leader,” and he was pretty “steamed” about how the federal government responded to Hurricane Katrina.

Obama’s Right: We Failed Black New Orleans After Katrina – David Frum: Is it really so outrageous that a black presidential candidate would want to talk about the displacement of black Americans in this way? Maybe a better question is: why isn’t the condition of black America an important topic for all presidential candidates of all backgrounds and all races?

Charles P. Pierce: But, honestly, beating the drum for an “exposé” of a video Carlson himself discussed on MSNBC five years ago is probably the most singularly pathetic moment in a career that has become singularly pathetic, and I used to watch The Spin Room on CNN….

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Carlson’s descent from reasonably credible magazine journalist to inept race hustler is well mapped territory. He has not been the same man since Jon Stewart took him down. The ethering reverberates through the years with such force that we now find its recipient slathering yesterday’s nothing-burgers in weak sauce, and serving them up as the daily special. Even those who would like to be fooled are not. “What’s the ‘So what’ of this video? I don’t think it’s going to really go anywhere,” Republican Rep. Allen West said on Fox News.

Zandar: I will add however that Romney’s internal polling numbers must continue to be absolutely horrific if the Tighty Whitey Patrol here is resorting to what is actually a really damn good speech by then Senator Barack Obama as some sort of secret instructions to us black folk to rise up and…build…infrastructure in…primarily minority neighborhoods…to benefit…minority owned local businesses.   Or something equally fabulously offensive.

Steve Benen: I’m not sure whether to be annoyed (by the ugly, racially-charged tactics), insulted (they’re treating Americans like fools), or feel sorry for them.

Josh Marshall: You don’t imagine you’ve got a big shocker story like this unless you really think you’ve got something big. And that tells me that there’s a big chunk of rightwing America living in a cocoon in which black people even talking about racism or race at all is ipso facto shocking. I think Americans know Barack Obama is black.

Better Drudge headline:

via: sarahlee310

The “explosive” Hampton Tape “Bombshell,” regurgitated from 2007

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Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson (wearing a big-boy tie now) hyped a video all day yesterday that had been previously reported about in 2007. Bombshell! As a matter of fact, Andrew Sullivan posted a full transcript in June of 2007. What’s the big deal now? Oh, well they want to air a segment where (then) Senator Obama name checks Rev. Wright, which wasn’t on the video in 2007:

“I’ve got to give a special shout-out to my pastor. The guy who puts up with me. Counsels me. Listens to my wife complain about me. He’s a friend. And a great leader,” the president said of Wright in an address to the Hampton University Annual Ministers’ Conference in Hampton, Va., in June 2007 in video posted by The Daily Caller and first aired on Fox News.

For the rightwing extremist, that’s all she wrote. Why? I don’t know. I’m not a rightwing extremist. But Obama goes on to say — and I think this is interesting:

“Down in New Orleans, where they still have not rebuilt 20 months later, there’s a law, federal law — when you get reconstruction money from the federal government — called the Stafford Act. And basically it says, when you get federal money, you’ve got to give a 10 percent match. The local government’s got to come up with 10 percent. Every 10 dollars the federal government comes up with, local government’s got to give a dollar.

“Now here’s the thing, when 9/11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act — said, ‘This is too serious a problem. We can’t expect New York City to rebuild on its own. Forget that dollar you got to put in. Well, here’s 10 dollars.’ And that was the right thing to do. When Hurricane Andrew struck in Florida, people said, ‘Look at this devastation. We don’t expect you to come up with y’own money, here. Here’s the money to rebuild. We’re not going to wait for you to scratch it together — because you’re part of the American family.’ … What’s happening down in New Orleans? Where’s your dollar? Where’s your Stafford Act money? Makes no sense. Tells me that somehow, the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much.”

BLACK PEOPLE ARE THE REAL RACISTS! I guess? ABC News reports “Carlson told Fox Tuesday night the clips were evidence the then-candidate was ‘whipping up race hatred and fear. Period.‘” Really! Obama also adds:

“People ask me whether I thought race was the reason the response was so slow. I said, ‘No. This administration was colorblind in its incompetence.’ But everyone here knows the disaster and the poverty happened long before that hurricane hit. All the hurricane did was make bare what we ignore each and every day, which is that there are whole sets of communities that are impoverished, that don’t have meaningful opportunity, that don’t have hope and they are forgotten. This disaster was a powerful metaphor for what’s gone on for generations.”

Whatever. First of all, this is so blatant an attempt to try and change the subject from Romney’s hidden camera remarks on the 47 percent that it reeks of flop sweat. Secondly the entire time Drudge was barking on the midway yesterday, preparing to release the flying monkeys, he was also linking to a page to contribute to Mitt Romney’s campaign. Certainly no collusion between Romney, Drudge, Hannity and Carlson over this latest bit of desperation, I’m sure.

Finally, and most importantly, look (or listen) to what Obama said — it’s an interesting observation: why WASN’T the Stafford Act waived for New Orleans after Katrina like it had been for other monumental disasters?  Do you agree that simply mentioning that fact is racist?

There’s no need to go to Tucker Carlson’s website to watch the video — you can watch the longer version here.

Campaigns respond to Romney’s 1985 “harvest companies for profit” speech

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Both campaigns responded to yesterday’s article by David Corn, regarding the 1985 video of Mitt Romney saying that the goal of Bain Capital was to buy stakes in undervalued companies and then “harvest them at a significant profit” years later:

The Obama campaign, via Randy Johnson, a former worker at Ampad: “Today’s video confirms what I and other workers fired by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital already know: that Romney’s business experience was never about creating jobs. Romney’s own words prove that his focus was putting profits before people from the very beginning, ‘harvesting’ companies to make a ‘significant profit’ for himself and   his investors – even if it meant investing in companies that shipped   American jobs to China. Any other explanation Romney puts forth about   this ‘private sector’ experience or understanding of the ‘real economy’ are just empty words from a man desperately trying to rewrite the past in order to win an election.”

The Romney campaign, via campaign spokesperson Amanda Henneberg: ”In addition to starting new businesses, Mitt Romney helped build Bain Capital by turning  around broken companies, creating and saving  thousands of jobs. The problem today is that President Obama hasn’t been able to turn around our economy in the same way.”

As David Corn noted yesterday, “Romney mentioned that it would routinely take up to eight years to turn around a firm—though he now slams the president for failing to revive the entire US economy in half that time.”

Stench / Gilligan 2012! (aka what Romney & Ryan call each other now)

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The Romney campaign is now in circular firing squad mode:

Roger Simon | Politico: “Paul Ryan has gone rogue. He is unleashed, unchained, off the hook. “I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him,” Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa, told The New York Times on Sunday.

“[...] Though Ryan had already decided to distance himself from the floundering Romney campaign, he now feels totally uninhibited. Reportedly, he has been marching around his campaign bus, saying things like, “If Stench calls, take a message” and “Tell Stench I’m having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later.”

“[...] Dan Senor, one of Romney’s closest advisers, has kept a tight grip on Ryan, traveling with him everywhere and making sure he hews to the directions of the Romney “brain trust” in Boston. (A brain trust, rumor has it, that refers to Ryan as “Gilligan.”)

“But on Saturday, the day after he was booed, Ryan broke free. Appearing at a town hall meeting at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Ryan showed the glitz, the glamour, the razzle-dazzle that he was supposed to bring to the campaign in the first place. He did a PowerPoint presentation for the crowd…”


image: mittromneyspresidency 

LOL Peggy Noonan and the Romney campaign

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“But: The Romney campaign has to get turned around. This week I called it incompetent, but only because I was being polite. I really meant “rolling calamity.” A lot of people weighed in, in I suppose expected ways: “Glad you said this,” “Mad you said this.” But, some surprises. No one that I know of defended the campaign or argued “you’re missing some of its quiet excellence.”"

— Peggy Noonan, still hoping for a miracle (or as she calls it, a “healthy spiral” to begin).

Mitt Romney using unpaid miners as campaign props – again

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The Columbus Dispatch reports:

“Mitt Romney’s campaign is airing two ads in eastern Ohio that include footage of the coal miners who lost pay because he campaigned at their mine. …The two ads titled “War on Coal” and “Way of Life” include shots of Romney on a stage with soot-covered coal miners.

“The footage is from Romney’s Aug. 14 campaign stop at the Century Mine in Beallsville, Ohio, owned by a subsidiary of Murray Energy Corp. It was later learned that the miners on stage were ordered out of the mine because of Romney’s campaign stop and were not paid for the portion of their shift that was canceled by the event. The Romney campaign confirmed the miners shown in the two ads were the miners from Romney’s campaign stop.”

Murray Energy and the Romney Campaign are blaming each other for closing the mine that day, which resulted in lost wages for every one of the men pictured standing behind Romney. In other words, neither Murray nor Romney want to take responsibility for ordering the mine closed during Romney’s appearance, because neither want to reimburse the miners for lost pay.

If you’re keeping score at home: Murray Energy: 1 (public relations opportunity with news), Romney Campaign: 2+ (backdrop for campaign stop + usage of photo ops for future campaign ads), and the miners: 0 (lost wages).

And that’s how Republicans roll.

The Romney Campaign: the Confluence of the Panics

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“God, he’s a foof and, god, are they selling his ass out wholesale. Somebody shipped this tape to Corn for the express purpose of confirming every single stereotype of Romney in which people already had come to despise. This is a perfect demonstration of what every other Republican candidate came to hate about him in 2008 — I’m willing to bet that old John McCain is pouring himself a nice Merlot tonight, and chuckling evilly to himself — and what drove Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich around the bend four years later. We are coming rapidly toward a devastating confluence of two colliding panics. The Romney campaign is panicking about itself, and the Republicans are panicking about the Romney campaign. He cannot come back from this, honestly. This is who he is. This is what he believes the world to be. Half the electorate already thinks he’s a fake, which means he’s not a very good one. There’s really only one campaign left to him now. Unfortunately for American politics, that means only one thing. It’s going to get extraordinarily dirty extraordinarily fast…” — Charles P. Pierce

“He was obviously inarticulate in making this point. The point we’re trying to make here is, under the Obama economy, government dependency is up and economic stagnation is up. And what we’re trying to achieve is trying to get people off government dependency and back to a job that pays well, that gets them on the path to prosperity.” — Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate (and, sorry, Paul, but that’s not even close to what Romney said or intended in that video tape — REFRAMING FAIL).

“I can remember in 2008 I said, ‘The fundamentals of our economy are strong.’ The tidal wave of criticism … I made several comments which people then said was terrible statements… I think that people will pay attention to the whole campaign, to jobs and the economy. I don’t think that people will believe that, as Gov. Romney made very clear, that we will exclude a single voter.” — No biggie says Sen. John McCain, the guy who was trounced by Barack Obama in 2008.

“I think there is a broad and growing feeling now, among Republicans, that this thing is slipping out of Romney’s hands,” — Peggy Noonan, in her WSJ column posted on Tuesday night.

“The wheels are not coming off the Mitt Romney campaign. They came off some time ago. The press is just beginning to notice. The Romney campaign is skidding along on its axles and scraping its muffler. Soon it will be down to the dog on the roof. I hate to say I told you so. No, scratch that. I love to say I told you so. I just don’t get to do it very often.” — Roger Simon, Politico

“There’s a feeling of almost that this thing’s in free fall. When campaigns spend an enormous amount of time trying to figure out why they’re broken, I don’t know if they ever come back.” —  a Republican consultant with deep experience on Capitol Hill and extensive contacts in the Romney campaign.

“There is a lot of unease within the campaign itself and within the Republican Party and the conservative movement about the state of the campaign. I think they feel like they can’t really catch a break, that this whole thing’s been a much steeper hill than it should have been.” — a fourth operative with experience in Republican presidential campaigns, who talks to those on the Romney campaign but is not working for them.

“The problem is the campaign is now in a spiral and no one knows how to pull out. Romney needs a big idea, then he needs to shift the debate to spending.” — Republican strategist Greg Strimple, who worked on John McCain’s 2008 campaign.

“That’s not the way I view the world. As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in.” — Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), one of two Republican candidates distancing themselves from Romney’s 47 percent comment.

“As a candidate, he is just not going to improve.” — a senior Republican who’s also deeply involved in this cycle’s campaign.

“There seems to be growing frustration. He fumbled the ball on the Libya response. … People are a little frustrated and they just feel like we do have an opportunity to win this cycle, and we’re just … imploding.” — a Romney bundler, who’s spoken to other donors in recent days.

“What he might have said is: ‘There are 47 percent who don’t pay taxes, many would like to be successful, under Obama it has been difficult for them to climb the ladder of success, and my goal is to get them to be successful. But he didn’t say that.” — longtime GOP fundraiser and adviser Fred Malek.

“I’m no Mitt Romney!” — Republican Mark Meadows during a North Carolina House debate.

“There’s no 47 percent in New Hampshire as far as I’m concerned.” — Ovide Lamontagne, the Republican candidate for governor in New Hampshire.

“New Mexico has many people who are living at the poverty level and their votes count just as much as anyone else.” — New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R)

“Romney seems to have contempt not just for the Democrats who oppose him, but for tens of millions who intend to vote for him.” — William Kristol, Weekly Standard

But Kristol goes further — he’s still praying for another candidate: “It remains important for the country that Romney wins in November (unless he chooses to step down and we get the Ryan-Rubio ticket we deserve!).”

As maybe Noonan is also, as she explains in 2,000 words why everything in Romney’s campaign – including the candidate – needs a do-over: “An intervention is in order. “Mitt, this isn’t working.”“