Early-On-Set Romney Derangement Syndrome

It’s fascinating watching how this election is shaping up. Romney’s on fire. Obama is flailing. The left is demoralized. And the only people helping Obama are right-wing talk radio and one Barbarian RINO. These are interesting times.

Watching the Republicans attack has been refreshing. For decades, the Republicans played the game of trying to be the nice guy. . . the Charlie Brown of politics. It never worked. This time is different. Indeed, Romney has been savaging Obama every single day on every issue that comes up. He’s pounded away on the economy, on the lack of jobs, on Obama politicizing the killing of bin Laden, etc.

He called Obama’s mishandling of the protection of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng “a dark day for freedom” and “a day of shame.” He blasted Obama’s attempt to find good news in April’s disastrous employment report (which shows both 8.1% unemployment and a record number of workers giving up trying to find jobs) and said “President Obama is out of ideas, he's out of excuses.”

He’s been verbally clever too, like when he flipped Obama’s claim Romney would not have killed bin Laden by both blasting the claim as politicizing military action and by implying that Obama doesn’t seem to realize he’s bragging about something truly anyone would have done: “Of course [I would have given that order]. Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” This makes Obama sound like quite a fool.

Moreover, he’s attacked the little things through surrogates, like how his people accused Obama of eating dog and how they’ve blasted his laughable new campaign slogan “Forward” because of its socialist roots. These attacks have dominated the new cycle sometimes for days and can’t be linked back to Romney by the general public.

At the same time, a bevy of Republicans in battleground states (and more) are blasting Obama on behalf of Romney: Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte, Bobby Jindal, Bob McConnell and more are all constantly attacking Obama. Rubio called Obama “divisive” and “cynical” and said he pits Americans against each other. “All the things that made him different and special four years ago are gone. And now all he does is run, dividing Americans against each other, obviously because he can't run on his record.” Then he added about Obama’s foreign policy, “there’s this propensity that this administration seems to have of an unwillingness to forcefully assert America's values.”

Kelly Ayotte blasted Obama’s Iran policy and accused him of remaining silent as the people of Iran sought free elections. She even suggested he could have solved the nuclear problem if he’d acted then. And she said she is more qualified to be President than Obama was in 2008.

Obama’s Julia ad brought dismissive attacks across the board from the right (a new tactic for conservatives). National Review called it “creepy” and “the perfect example of [Obama’s] cradle-to-grave welfare mentality.” Others called it sexist and pointed out the irony or portraying Julia as “a strong, independent woman” and then showing her life depending on Obama’s paternalism. Human Events called it “offensively patronizing.” Paul Ryan called the Julia website “creepy and demeaning.” He added this: “It suggests that this woman can’t go anywhere in life without Barack Obama’s government-centered society. It’s kind of demeaning to her. She must have him and his big government to depend on to go anywhere in life. It doesn’t say much about his faith in Julia.”

And many of these attacks have gotten under Obama’s skin. A good example was Romney parking his campaign bus across from where Obama planned to start his campaign. The news cycle spent more time mentioning this sleight than it did what Obama said. Fox has even noticed that Obama is suffering from early-on-set Romney Derangement Syndrome, which is causing him to take inappropriate personal shots at Romney and sink to defending things Presidents normally ignore.

Obama, by the way, can’t find a message. Nor has he found a way to counterattack. He tried the “out-of-touch rich, white guy” bit and that didn’t work. “Dangerous extremist” didn’t work either. The war on women imploded, so did the Trayvon Martin race war. Now he’s reduced (I kid you not) to “don’t take a chance on Romney.” That’s what Sarkozy tried. . . and Gordon Brown. . . and George Bush Sr.

Meanwhile, places like Politico are adrift. Obama has given them nothing, and all they can do is try to explain away the bad news. Obama kicked off his campaign to empty stadiums, so they ran Axelrod’s claim that it was the intensity which matters. Sure. They had Axelrod explain why Obama wasn’t really spiking the ball (again and again) by trying to claim credit for the killing of bin Laden. They whined that the Keystone Pipeline guys are overselling how many jobs Obama killed, and the attacks on the Julia website aren’t entirely fair. Robert DeNiro likes Obama again, did you know that? Oh, and Hispanics might be critical in the election. . . maybe. Hey, Romney had a gay staffer? That should bother you religious nuts, right? Ann Romney spends a lot on clothes! Come on people! //sigh

In fact, right now the best friends Obama has are uberRINOs like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who fears people with principles and spent the weekend attacking the GOP as “too narrow and too rigid,” and people like talk radio. Indeed, talk radio and websites like HotAir are spending their time cherry-picking words out of the quotes of unnamed Romney staffers so they can prove his move to the center. . . he’s the real Alinsky Trojan Horse people!!! Fortunately, their idiotic bleating will only make Romney more acceptable to independents. . . assuming anyone is listening.

In any event, I shall leave you with this. I said the other day that this race really comes down to Ohio and Florida, and that still seems to be true. But the way things are going, I’m starting to wonder if that might not be too pessimistic? And before you say, “but the polls,” consider this. . . when the polls are normed to reflect the population, they use turn-out figures from the 2008 election, which was disproportionately Democratic. Think that will happen again?