I really thought that I heard on NPR today that Romney himself (or an aide) walked back that statement. All I'm getting on the Google is that he doubled-down.

Also, I went to NPR's website and am pleased to find out that tea-tards have a bigger presence than I would have ever dreamed of.

My statement in regards to him losing the election is not that he will lose votes based solely on the contents of this statement; clearly most of his supporters don't give a shit. HIs voter base, however, would probably not think to well of Romney when even his major conservative base are saying what a fucking disgusting prick he is. It can very well take the wind out of the sails which, I think personally is what happened to McCain in 08 and why he lost by such a huge margin; not so much that his supporters suddenly voted for Obama, but rather they lost all desire to vote for McCain.

Yesterday even Fox News cut away from a speech he was giving to a National Guard event when it became his speech was veering into campaign territory despite him having promised he would not make campaign-style speeches on 9/11 or 9/12. No major news network carried the speech in its entirety; all networks stopped covering it once he brought up 9/11 and then continued with other soft news.

Here's another reason he's going to lose. There's no heart of values to the campaign for everyone to use as a common language. Even the values they claim are chosen to appease the most crazed of their constituents, and they don't message those particularly well either. I agree with what people have been saying here. There's just no reason to vote affirmatively for Romney, so this actually makes very little difference. It's just evidence of what we already know is a desperate and failing campaign.

Facts are stupid things.

-Ronald Reagan

You can hear him kicking the tires on the White House already. He is making statements to the world with a tone that suggests he is speaking on everyone's behalf and is already in office.

With this election just hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

^ There are more elegant ways to explain the situation, but none with so few words.

"But Obama didn't say he was against it! That means he's for it! These really are not lies!"

- Romney, upon losing the election

True, but most of those people aren't big fans of Mormons, either.

Seriously, this guy's only job right now is to /not/ be seen as a black liberal extremist muslim anti-American neo-socialist. How can he fuck that up?

I hope he does.

Speaking of Mitt's lips, this event was made all the worse for him thanks to being photograped as he walked away from the podium:

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/09/score

Love that patrician oligarch smirk. He's the perfect mixture of Mr. Burns and the Governor from "Blazing Saddles."

Not necessarily...here is a possible scenario...

Romney's camp examines the recent poll numbers (including the lack of a bump from the RNC and the larger than expected bump from the DNC) and concludes that their campaign is in real trouble. They don't think they can make any real impact with moderates, but think their best chance now is to energize their base. Their research shows that their base is mistrusting of Muslims and think Obama is weak on foreign issues, so they take this opportunity to try to hang some recent tragic news on the president.

Pareene wrote about it in Salon today and he makes some good points.

Of course, its equally plausible that the people running Romney's campaign are dipshits who royally fucked up on this one.

As others have pointed out, it's obvious that strategy is very short-term and will continue to dig their party into a hole that they can't get out of. They're already in pretty deep, if they keep digging, it may be impossible to escape the black hole of angry white men.

The base is Romney's biggest problem. Thanks to them, even Republicans who might have once been considered moderates can't even get nominated. Before you can even get on the ballot, you've got to swear to Grover Norquist that you won't ever raise taxes under any circumstances, promise the rich and the corporations that you'll cut their taxes, and take an oath to the religious nuts that you'll try to plug every available American orifice with as much Jesus as you can (especially on women).

If it weren't for the money of people like the Kochs and their pals in oil and on Wall Street, the Republicans wouldn't be able to get anyone past the nomination stage, since all they have left is white religious fundamentalists who are willing to give their tax dollars to the rich because they hate the poor and minorities.

Appealing to moderates is supposed to be Romney's job. That's why he was nominated instead of all those crazy "authentic" candidates that the base loved so much more. Romney's problem is that he can't appeal to the base and to the rest of the country at the same time. Bush could, but that was after 9/11, and he just barely pulled it off. Everything McCain did to appeal to the base (Sarah Palin) alienated him from everybody else.