Romney campaign's juvenile assholery on full display in Ohio

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You know, this pretty much sums up Republicans' disrespectful regard for President Obama the past four years:

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Republican nominee Mitt Romney's guerrilla tactics continued Thursday, as the campaign bus circled the venue where President Barack Obama will be speaking this afternoon.

As it passed the assembled throngs of supporters awaiting entry to the event at Cuyahoga Community College, the bus honked its horn dozens of times, before circling around to do it again. Obama supporters jeered and booed each time the bus passed the line outside of the security screening area.

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An Obama campaign aide responded to the Romney effort saying "that's not our style," adding "campaigns are a reflection of the candidate."

And a reflection of the candidate's party as well.

Steve M.:

The difference between Mitt Romney at prep school and Mitt Romney as an adult is, apparently, that these days he has people to do his harassment for him. His emotional age appears not to have changed.

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I think a certain level of cockiness is impressive to the media types, and that results in better press coverage of the campaign. But this? This is punk stuff. This is just brattiness. It's not a sign of confidence. It's juvenile.

And so very Romney.

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For more, see Josh Marshall, who writes that "[t]he Romney camp has made a straightforward calculation that it can make up with appeals to the conservative id the ground it can't ever make up convincing anyone that Romney is really a right-wing ideologue."

Which is to say, Romney evidently thinks that acting like an asshole, which isn't exactly a stretch for him, will make him more appealing to the right.

He may very well be right.