Mitt Romney gives his backers the low down — down low

Romney says, “It’s the gifts, stupid !”

There have been a ton of opinion pieces about Mitt Romney’s post-election whine about how the president won his re-election by “giving” stuff  to targeted groups of voters. The Maggie Haberman, “Romney tells donors he lost because of Obama 'gifts' to minorities, young voters (Updated)” posted Wednesday on Politico is as good or better than most. What I liked most is how Maggie ( I hope that she doesn’t mind the familiarity) briefly alluded to this as a version of Romney’s “47%” view of the electorate.  I saw the same thing and I thought, “Perfect, Mitt Romney has gone ‘full circle’.”

That doesn’t tell the half of it.  Of course Romney went full circle  —  he did it over and over, it’s what he did throughout the 2011-2012 presidential run-up, and then on into the primaries and even during the post-convention campaign. His approach to the primaries and the election was the common approach to pinning the tail on the donkey  —   perhaps the favorite game of all good Republicans.  Romney put on the blindfold and spun round and round, but he never really stooped spinning and stabilize, nor did he line up and zero-in on the target Obama. Instead, he kept trying to pin the tail while spinning, spinning, spinning  —  not only did he seldom hit the target, none of his tries really stuck.

Romney’s latest reported remarks also drove home another of Mitt Romney’s shortcomings as a candidate  —   whenever he tried to be honest, he just didn’t sound serious; and whenever he tried to be serious, he just didn’t sound honest.