Stilli, 

Agree with everything you stated, but as for the polls, it's been published widely that many of those in the GOP column aren't voting for Romney as much as they are voting for 'anyone but Obama'.

Most Repubs don't even like Mitt, much less hold him in any esteem, they know who and what he is (and if some don't by now, they are choosing to be ignorant about him and his candidacy) but he's all they've got now, so realistically they only have three choices:  vote for him - don't vote - or vote Obama. 

OKAY,

Let us discuss these matters one by one.

First, if you pay someone to lie for you, you have simply taken advantage of your right to a lawyer under our Constitution.

So it is not the same as if you, yourself lied.

Second, if someone surreptitiously records you whilst you are surreptitiously asking for money from evil evil bastards; well your Constitutional Rights have been abridged!

Third, when you are acting as a capitalist and work to destroy everybody and everything in your path; YOU ARE A REAL AMERICAN!

Fourth, Mitt and Ryan are attacking other people's children; not their own for chrissakes!

I mean babies are of import but only your own babies! And that is a Constitutional Right.

Fifth, there is no law on record castigating a politician for lying all the time on any issue presented; it is his Constitutional Right to do so.

Sixth, if competence were a requirement for office; well half of Congress would be run out on a rail and half of the half remaining would be put in prison for outright felonious theft!

That's all I got right now.

hahahahahahaahahha

Get your facts first, then you can feel free to distort them later

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_twain.html

Those who've been through them say going through a presidential election campaign is a searing experience.  For Romney, given where the GOP is now, getting through the primaries was a test, but nothing like the general election campaign, where the level of scrutiny of his past statements and actions is a few orders of magnitude amped up.

Several of us have, along with you (most recently AuntSam) wondered aloud whether one of the things he may have learned in recent weeks is that, in the end, he does not really want the job.  

I guess I'm supposed to believe this, but I'll say it anyway: the GOP bubble is significantly more detached from the reality of what people are going through in this country than the Democratic party bubble.  This is because the GOP worldview is so much more extreme, and has so much less facts-on-the-ground data to lend it credibility, than the Democratic worldview.  Because of this extreme separation from reality, lying is both more necessary and more accepted within the GOP camp as a perhaps regrettable, but still forgiveable, campaign offense.  It's the FoxNews ethic at work, with its rejection and contempt for nonpartisan attempts at reporting wrapped up in its MO, year after year.  They've made a great contribution to moving us towards the post-factual US some think we have arrived at.   

There are all kinds of things an aspirant for today's GOP nomination is almost required to say that are virulently supported by a minority of our population and are also considered beyond the pale by much of the rest.  As Romney is learning.  The 47% statement is an example.  Within today's GOP tent, that might be seen as a bit awkwardly phrased, but clearly it is not much if at all out of line with powerfully held sentiments among many diehard Republican party supporters.  Say that stuff in the white hot glare of a general election campaign, and whoah.  Reality check. 

I don't see any other way of explaining how, as someone wrote earlier today, with this lousy economy, the race can be where it is now.  As has at times happened in the past, it's far more the case that the Republicans are so far doing an awesome job of losing this election than it is that Democrats are doing a great job of winning it, because, frankly, the Democrats are offering not much of anything going forward beyond "we're not [crazy, dangerous, etc.] them".  Rather, the GOP is in the process of being exposed, finally(?), for the lying sacks of useless, reactionary, destructive shit that they are, pardon my French.  That seems to me just where we are right now as a country.  So Obama and the Dems may, just may if the House flips, almost inconceivably get a 2nd chance.    

I think acanuck may be right when he offers that the American public may be in the process of, finally, beginning to wake up to a growing recognition of just what today's GOP really is, of how utterly bankrupt they are of any ideas which have not already been tried and found deeply destructive, of the unpatriotic depths to which they will stoop to try to destroy Obama and the Democrats with a wrecked economy viewed as collateral damage to that primary commitment, etc. 

In response to your (rhetorical?) request, that's what I got right now.

You've made some fine points...

If Willard truly believes it's his "mission" in the eyes of his God to be POTUS, then there is the ol' saying amongst the faithful: "Lying for the Lord..."

You should know that if you spent time in the clan...

~OGD~

I think he's a smart guy, sure.  Well educated, well connected, worldly, all of that.  I think that he holds himself in high regard, which might be a symptom of the authority and money he's had all his life, or it might just reinforce his self-esteem.  When everybody has to call you sir and you can buy a car elevator it's easy to think you're special.

He wants to be president and feels he deserves it and I'd even go so far as to say that he honestly believes that the country would be better off for it.  He ran once, lost in the primaries, probably spent the 2008 general thinking he could have beaten Obama and now he's taken another swing.

And, damn it, he was not going to repeat his mistakes and lose in the primary, especially to the lightweight field around him.  So, because you can't do all of the great things you'd do as president if you don't win the primary, he set out to invent himself as somebody who could win the primary.  And, damn it, he took the party with him, kicking and screaming.  Seemed like everybody but Ron Paul had a shot this time around, but they finally settled on Romney.  Mission accomplished.

Problem is... you can't do all of the wonderful things you're going to do as President if you don't win the general election.  So Romney reinvents himself again. And again.  And again.  He's probably doing it right now.

Because in the end, he knows that being a "man with a core" or a consistent philosophy or whatever is not as cool as being president.  And so if he has to lie, he'll lie.  If he has to run against his record, he will.  If he thinks it makes sense to brag about MassCare to one person and to keep quiet about it to another, he will do that.

Because he thinks he deserves to be president.  There's a real awfulness to that sense of entitlement, if you think about it.  But he has it.  And to him, it's okay, because he will do wonderful things for the country, if we'll only let him.  And he'll do whatever it takes to get us to let him.  He's actually more Messianic than Obama ever was, but he's so darned goofy about it, nobody will ever say so.