Cross-posted in Immizen.com
Leading up to Wednesday's widely condemned outburst on the Obama administration's imagined "apology" to the Libyan attackers that killed Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans, the Romney campaign had been beset with second-guessing and recriminations among the conservative base.
Rush Limbaugh compared Romney to Elmer Fudd and said that a Romney loss would require the dismantling of the Republican Party.
Erstwhile supporter Laura Ingraham is now blasting the Romney campaign, somewhat bizarrely, for not coming out with a message comparable to the Geico gecko commercials.
As described in the book and HBO movie Game Change, candidates pretty much know at this point in the election cycle whether they are going to win or not.
In an interview after the 2008 election, McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt describes the mindset that compels candidates to act recklessly:
“Was it reckless of you?” Geist followed up.
“Well, I was part of a team that settled on the result, you know. I didn’t wake up one day and say ‘let’s pick her,’” Schmidt explained. “But there’s a scene in the movie where I’m saying to Senator McCain — it’s almost verbatim– the conversation that happened, saying I would rather lose by ten points than lose by one point saying, ‘did we do everything we can to win?’ And for me, the experience on this campaign is that there are worse things than losing.”
Knowing that the current state of the 2012 race guarantees a loss comparable to that of McCain in 2008, the Romney campaign is caught in a cycle of seizing on the news of the day to slam Obama, whether it is the Chicago teachers' strike, the latest jobs report (75K jobs added), Obama's intelligence briefing attendance or, now, the murder of an American ambassador. Nothing has stuck, but this last reflexive denunciation is almost certainly one tsk-tsk too far.