Mitt's Morning After

Only one story this morning and every commentator and blogger on the planet has an opinion. Here's some that seemed more insightful.

Josh Barro: "Today, Mitt Romney Lost the Election." Too easy and not necessarily true.

Mark Halperin: "This is politically devastating because it plays into people’s preconceived notions of Romney as Monty Burns+Thurston Howell. And the bigger potential problem is that the right (Limbaugh, Ingraham, Erickson) will love what Romney said and if he walks it back they will savage him as being a weak-kneed and caving to liberals and the media."

Josh Marshall: "This tape says that caricature Mitt Romney is the real Mitt Romney."

 

TheNationalMemo: "Since 2006, Mitt Romney has been running to become the President of the Republican Party, which may be the worst possible preparation to become a candidate for President of the United States."

 

Why did it happen? Blake Zeff: "If you're thinking this all could have been easily avoided had Romney just given his stump speech at that fundraiser, you're right...  a 'high dollar' campaign fundraising event will be billed as a chance to hear the 'real inside scoop' of what's going on in the campaign. So, candidates are often admonished by their fundraising staff not to give their usual stump speech, because these donors expect more. 

 

So is this the Real Romney? Two opposing camps. David Brooks: "I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign." 

 

But Jonathan Chait: "The video exposes an authentic Romney as a far more sinister character than I had imagined. Here is the sneering plutocrat, fully in thrall to a series of pernicious myths that are at the heart of the mania that has seized his party."