The problem with Mitt Romney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Let me be clear about something:

The issue isn't that Mitt Romney is super-rich, as his tax returns show, nor even that he pays a low tax rate (that's a separate issue and obviously a huge problem), it's that he's a privileged rich douchebag, a rich guy who thinks that politics should be for rich guys, who has a plan to make rich people like himself even richer, just as he has advocated for that throughout his career, and who dismisses the rest of us as envious.

Is it really any wonder that his favorability rating has collapsed to Newt-like levels? He's just not as electable as he has made himself out to be, one of his key selling points, and a lot of that has to do with his douchebaggery. Independents in particular have abandoned him. As Greg Sargent explains:

Romney has taken an unusually rough battering in recent days, and he has plenty of time to turn things around. But the spike in negative views of Romney among blue collar whites suggests the possibility that the assault on his wealth, privilege, low tax rates and generally out of touch persona could be resonating with them, and is possibly beginning to define Romney among them. One imagines Republicans who are gauging Romney's electability in a general election — and were already inclined to doubt his strength among these voters — might find this somewhat worrisome.

That, I suspect, is a massive understatement.