Romney grossly overestimated the country's hatred of Obama... [View all]

[Drunken Irishman]

I'm convinced of it. I believe the Romney campaign expected to run a campaign of no-ideas and zero specifics because they felt, in the end, Obama's popularity (or lack thereof) would sink him. I believe they felt they would overtake him in the polls in the summer and hold that lead through September and October and into the election ... especially after those bad jobs reports from May and June set an even worse narrative for the Obama campaign.

Yet it never materialized. Their entire strategy since wrapping up the Republican nomination in March has been devoted to this idea that the polls would ultimately shift in their favor and they would only have to play it safe the final two months of the campaign to win. When that didn't happen, when May turned to June and June to July and July to August and the campaign still failed to gain traction, they went out and picked Paul Ryan as Mitt's running-mate. This was a desperation move, as we all thought it was when it happened, because they were in dire need of something to gain their footing. It didn't work ... at least long term. I do think, like the Palin pick four years ago, it did provide a semi-spark and allowed the campaign some momentum, but it all petered out at the convention.

Because there was no bounce, because they could never overtake Obama in the polls, that allowed Obama a chance to solidify his position as front-runner when the Democrats held their convention. Bottom line: Romney underestimated Obama's support and overestimated the country's hatred of Obama.

That left the campaign in a position they didn't expect - losing this close to the election. Now they don't know how to react with so little time to turn things around. It's been one blow after another since the Republican Convention. You had the Clint Eastwood joke ... the forgetting of troops in his acceptance speech ... the massively successful Democratic Convention ... Romney's comments on Libya and now the 47%.

This race has gone from being a referendum on Obama to one on Romney and he's losing. His campaign is losing and it's a position they never thought they would be in at this point. I am confident they believed they would be up in the polls right now and winning in states like Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada.

So, the question becomes whether they have what it takes to reverse this course. When you're losing this close to election day, it becomes increasingly difficult to turn things around. The window of opportunity is very small right now and they pretty much have to run a flawless campaign between today and election day to have a chance. That's a mighty big task for any campaign (every campaign makes mistakes) ... let alone one that has been so poorly run.

Romney's problem is that he really hasn't run a campaign. He's essentially mailed it in, both in rhetoric and strategy, because he felt, sooner or later, the American people would wake up and turn against Obama. But it hasn't happened. Now he's in trouble ... and losing and while he can still pull this out, it's not going to be easy.

If Romney loses, it's because of his arrogance and pathetic campaign strategy. Regardless of what some DUers think, this was a winnable election for the Republicans. Not entirely as winnable as '92 and '80 were for the challenging party, but winnable enough - like '04 was for the Democrats. Now, I think it would have taken some extraordinary campaigning for anyone to beat Obama, because people underestimate just how good of a campaigner he is and how well his team runs campaigns, but it was doable. Romney was probably the best candidate they had ... and that's saying something. In the end, Romney has run a flawed campaign. But then again, he's a flawed candidate. Fortunately, if (when) he loses, he'll slip back into irrelevancy and we'll never have to worry about him again.