Behind the Ad: MItt Romney loves everyone equally. He really does.

By Richard K. Barry

(Another installment in our extensive "Behind the Ad" series.) 

Who: The Romney-Ryan campaign.

Where: Nine swing states.

What's going on: Mitt Romney is doing his best to contain the damage done by remarks that he doesn't give a damn about the 47 percent who will never vote for him, the same 47 percent he thinks consider themselves victims.

In the ad, called "Too Many Americans," Romney looks right at the camera and gets all soft and gooey as he tells voters how much he cares about them -- all of them.

If the more recent swing in the polls is any indication, Romney's previous comments did a whole lot of damage and he is scrambling to reverse course as best he can.

As Greg Sargent writes:

The ad also represents a significant reframing of Romney's message. The previous, backward-looking frame — "are you better off than you were four years ago?" — is replaced in this ad with the forward-looking assertion that we can't afford another four years like the last four. So the investment in the new spot suggests an admission that the previous framing failed and a heavy bet on this new messaging as his best shot of salvaging his candidacy.

In politics, as in life, when you lose credibility, everything you say just digs the hole deeper. Keep talking, Mitt.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)