Romney Aides “Pretty Resigned” to Losing

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Over at NRO, Denis Boyles passes along an anecdote from Sam Coates of the London Times, who says that everyone in Europe is now assuming that Mitt Romney will lose in November:

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.

So what’s the answer? You guessed it: Romney’s being too damn moderate. He needs to let his tea party flag fly:

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.

We’re going to be hearing a lot more of this as time goes by and Romney’s campaign looks ever more hopeless. Despite the fact that Romney has faithfully adopted virtually every position the tea party has demanded of him, the true believers are already preparing the ground for his increasingly inevitable election-day repudiation. And their story is going to be exactly what you think: Romney was never really one of them and the American public sniffed that out. They wanted a real red-meat conservative, and Romney wasn’t that guy.

You see, true conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed. Welcome to 2013.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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