K-Thug:

I would just chime in that I agree with Robin that Romney is in very serious trouble. Think of the pattern that’s accumulating: the obfuscation over the Bain record on jobs, outsourcing, and all that, the mysterious offshore accounts (and the magical $100 million IRA), the stonewalling on past tax records, and now his insistence that he was no longer working at a company that continued to list him as CEO and pay him lots of money.

Republicans have long thrived on the “not like you” strategy — portraying Democrats as somehow alien and un-American (remember how John Kerry supposedly “looked French”). But they’ve been throwing that stuff at Obama for four years; if they haven’t managed to turn him into a Kenyan Muslim Marxist yet, they never will. Meanwhile, they themselves have a candidate who is definitely not like the rest of us, heavily engaged in tax-avoiding financial deals that may have been legal but which voters will rightly see as the kind of thing only the very rich can pull off.

What’s more, I suspect that the honesty thing will finally gain traction. For months some of us have been groaning over Romney’s almost surreal dishonesty over policy issues, but have largely given up hope that reporters would get best “shape of the earth: views differ”. But saying you were no longer at a company that listed you as CEO gets this down to the personal level.

I wonder about this last point. Romney is a prodigious liar, this much is true, and I don’t even think anyone disagrees with that. Surely nobody did during the GOP primaries: the moderate Republicans who dominated his coalition thought he was lying about his severe conservatism, and so did the conservatives. Both sides were wrong, I think, but still. He managed to massage enough truths (and build enough support among moneymen to destroy a number of weak candidates) that he got the nomination. But he never really convinced anyone of his sincerity, which explains the item I posted the other day: way more Republicans were voting for Romney by default than because they actually liked the guy. They just hate Obama more.

Thing is, though, I don’t think Romney was faking his conservatism. My longtime stance is that Romney can talk himself into mostly anything. (He’s not been able to appear sincere about it, admittedly, which is an interesting thing to ponder that I won’t right now.) For most of the cycle it’s worked for him, he’s been able to launch utterly ridiculous attacks on Barack Obama without any scrutiny. But the danger is, what if he convinces himself of something that is false because it’s politically useful? What if, at some point, he got himself to truly believe that he left Bain in 1999, and that he didn’t do outsourcing/offshoring, that all his finances are in pristine order and there are absolutely no red flags to be found there? It’s hard to believe–even someone as cynical about the Mittster as myself has a hard time believing it. But it is plausible, especially if you’ve read Saletan’s article on his abortion stance, on how he can argue that he’s always been pro-life when that’s a ridiculous thing to believe, it would explain the past few months easily. Why has Romney failed to respond to potentially damaging attacks? Because Romney himself now believes there’s nothing to them, so there’s no point in responding when you can still talk about economic indicators.

Yeah, it’s a little nuts perhaps, but I’m having a hard time coming up with a better explanation. He’s too focused on the economy? Then why is he launching nonsense foreign policy attacks that will win him zero votes? Even if he doesn’t want to engage on the issue, there’s no excuse for getting caught so flat-footed, for not having some line to trot out when it inevitably came up. Maybe he thought Obama would be too much of a wimp to bring it up after Cory Booker complained? Possible, but if true, that would be some serious underestimation going on there. Maybe he somehow sees engaging in such a debate demeaning and prefers to take the high road? If so, the John Kerry comparisons are more apt than anyone realized, and will become even more so before long.

Anyway, getting back to Romney being perceived as dishonest: could happen, but my guess is that Romney isn’t going to be shaken if he’s convinced himself. He’ll just keep saying he left in 1999, and after a while the press will move onto something else, and will go on portraying him as a technocrat. Not like that hasn’t happened a few times already…