Posted on 09/28/2012 1:35:34 PM PDT by madprof98
That, apparently, is the long-held view of Mitt’s men — not and not just about the forthcoming debates, but about the whole campaign.
I have this from the lips of Sam Coates, the deputy political editor of the London Times, who was on BBC Radio 4′s Broadcasting House last Sunday participating in one of those panels of pundits-looking-at-the-press. Everyone agreed that, according to the polls, the U.S. election was finally over and that Obama would be back for four more years. All the newspapers all said so. “It feels,” said Coates, “that the incumbent is pulling away.”
Coates said the assumption of a Romney defeat fit his own view of the Republicans surrounding Mitt, a pessimism he saw back when Romney was in London eating his foot while talking about the Olympics. “His aides were there,” he said, “and they were telling some of our political advisers that, really, they weren’t that optimistic about their guy’s chances. They’re pretty resigned to it not going well, and it’s interesting to see that people are already moving away from his campaign.”
Does this seem plausible? Coates is a normally careful reporter. So does it seem that the coterie of mostly cautious Republicans surrounding Mitt are just going through the motions, they way they did for Dole and McCain? Does it seem, as it does from the Euro side of the Atlantic, that Mitt’s Republicans are embarrassed by their base — by “the vision thing” — and sometimes even by their VP nominee? If that’s true, then maybe all those odd polls reported by Katrina are true, too. After all, for two terms in the state of Kansas, where almost every voter is a Republican, voters routinely chose Sebelius, a left-wing extremist, over GOP candidates well-marinated in “moderation.” Nobody wants to vote for the reasonable chap running as functionary-in-chief.
In fact, what Americans seem to want is more polarization, not less. Those Republicans who try to campaign by galvanizing and leading their base, instead of ignoring and avoiding it, must be feeling now the way Romney’s dour aides have apparently felt all along — “pretty resigned,” minus the pretty. This is true in Senate races, too, and especially with influential PACs. In Michigan, where conservative Pete Hoekstra was running neck-and-neck with liberal Debbie Stabenow, the super PACs quit early and went elsewhere. As one source well-placed in the Hoekstra campaign told me, “We feel like the Rodney Dangerfield of Senate races.”
Scott Walker, the conservative Wisconsin Republican who defeated an all-out, union-run recall effort in a Democratic state, seemed to speak for many of the unwashed, according to the Independent:
It is no accident that Mr Romney hopes to close the book on his latest embarrassments with a bus tour in Ohio. It may also be telling that the tour will be opened by his running mate, Paul Ryan. Mr Ryan, who will address supporters in Lima, Ohio, today, is increasingly being seen as the more effective campaigner. Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin, said as much when he praised Mr Ryan and said he hadn’t seen the “kind of passion I know that Paul has transferred over to our nominee”.Like other Republican luminaries, Mr Walker is no longer shy in offering his counsel to Mr Romney. “I want to see fire in the belly,” he declared, demanding evidence that the nominee is “lit up and ready to go”. He added: “I think you got to get off the heels and get out and charge forward.”
Fire in the belly? Lit up and ready to go? Mitt? Like a Glo-Stick on a bus, maybe.
up to 1 point in Ras swing state polls, up plenty with indies, no worries
As I recall there have been several hundred “anonymous” sourced” Mass Media stories like this that have turned out to be total BS in the last 10 years.
Odd how the sour grapes crowd wants to dismiss mass media stories that challenge their emotion based opinions while feverishly clinging to one that validate their sour grapes that Romney won the Primary
Almost no one here was excited when Mitt became our nominee, but he is the only chance we have to derail four more years of hell on Earth.
I will support him regardless. I just hope he can pull things together, inspire the base, and spark a rally before this thing ends.
Boo freakin’ Hoo - I’m not buying it. At the very least, I think it’s going to be very close. If I’m wrong, so be it, I’ll eat my words on 11/6.
Unlike Dole the economy sucks. They keep beating the drums that Obama is winning because they want to discourage Republicans from voting. Rasmussen is showing too close to call.
I don’t believe for a second that the campaign was resigned to loss in July when they were on their visits to London and Israel. The campaign was at the time running well, and the outlook for Obama was terrible as the economy was tanking all summer. It makes no sense.
This is a hacker job article, pulling unnamed sources and out of context quotes from people like Scott Walker. Walker’s comments were positive and encouraging, not negative and hopeless.
Oh yeah everyone, let’s just give up and go home in September.......Obama is unstoppable.
Nobody wants him re-elected, nobody wants him to have four more years but hey, all those polls cannot possibly be lies to disocurage us now can they?
And since when does the Romney camp talk to reporters in London about how they feel?
Again the message is “Stay home, it’s over”.
It’s only over if we allow it to be over. That is what Obama is counting on, it’s the only prayer he’s got and we need to do a much better job of recognizing psychological operations when we see them.
Wake up!
As for who we nominated, we'll know better after the debates.
you anti Romney people may get your wish yet....
and you will face the consequences like the rest of us...
you'll be in the pro obama camp from here on out, and may God have mercy on your souls...
I don’t know this Dennis Boyles, but I don’t know why National Review would try to undermine Romney. He was their first choice!
Who know what lies behind this story. It must be said that Romney has a bunch of spineless losers for handlers. He lent some of them to McCain last time around, and they did everything they could to lose the election.
NRO belongs in the same dust bin as Peggy Noonan and Crease Brooks. Waving the white flag on September 29th. Unbelievable.
I want to see this guy’s face when Romney wins convincingly on November 6th.
donate...vote....pray...that simple....
Romney has a natural constiuency..Mormons...he has money...he has monied friends....this is the worse economy since the Great depression and more and more job layoffs are announced each day...
our Ambassador was just torn out of his home and sodomized and murdered....
THIS is not 1996....
Romney wasn’t my first choice but I’d rather have him as president than Obama. We are in the middle of a war. Sitting back and this point and saying “I told you so” isn’t going to advance anything.
I’m just plain disgusted by the media and the “conservative” weak-kneed pansies who are more interested in moaning about how horrible everything is than winning. They need to stop writing this type of BS, stop writing columns about how Romney should change his campaign and start writing about how bad the enemy is.
The end result of this campaign, whether Romeny wins or loses, is that I’m a lot less likely to read “conservative” blogs that put a lot of negative BS up, or that turn tail and run when Romney is down. Its not how I want to spend my time. Screw them.
Same reason they tried to undermine McCain, who was also their first choice in 2008: NRO is run by closet Obama-bots.
Yes, I’m an idiot supreme and that is why I believe that all of Romney’s team members, when they were over in London in July, were telling everyone that they thought they were going to lose. Why would that not be credible?
Ubama is not winning any demographic he lost in 2008, and is behind 2008 in the demographics he did win.
Fact is, Ubama is going to lose in a landslide, and he knows it, which is why he and Moochelle just bought that new crib in Hawaii.
He wouldn't be planning a move if he thought he was going to win.
I know people who’ve never voted who are registered now and cannot wait to pull the Anti-Obama lever. All of these “articles” make me laugh. Look at any yahoo article bashing Mitt or stroking Obama and it’s easily a 60/40 split if not more of posters who LOATH Obama. The guy is the biggest Worm in American politics and November 6th will show it.
In 2008 my fingers were crossed because every damn person I talked to would not say a negative thing about Obama.
I can’t find a person to say something nice. Coal plants shut down (union). Energy plant filed bankruptcy (union) RR workers who move everything but mostly coal (union). They all hate the Socialist POS.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.