One can dream, but this site wanted the milquetoast. The guy who can’t even pander on the issue of leaving god out of the platform. This site would have replaced Judas with the rich young ruler lest the Sadducees get the apostle “off message.”

1. He is giving up on repealing Obamacare. That’s Tyler Cowen’s view.

2. He did a lousy job of pointing out that he would have his own plan for dealing with pre-existing conditions that he hasn’t really articulated, and this despite Romney’s own reference to Romneycare as an example of Romney dealing with pre-existing conditions which is very similar to the guaranteed issue + community rating + insurance purchase mandate in Obamacare. So Romney was failing to convey that he actually supported a different set of policies that are obscure to the vast majority of the public and that he had taken no time to explain, rather than saying he would keep the guaranteed issue provisions of Obamacare.

3. Both 1 and 2 are wrong and Romney got stuck trying to have it every way simultaneously. I favor interpretation 3.

Absolutely nothing’s changed. The economy is still a disaster. Most folks still think Obama’s a decent enough failure with no answers. And Romney is still a terrible, terrible, terrible candidate.

Knowing that neither of these jokers has the first clue how to address any of the fundamental problems facing the country can be strangely liberating.

Steve, I think that the whole “humanizing” notion is getting in the way of seeing Romney’s problems. People have concerns about him. About zero percent (give or take one percent) of those concerns revolve around how much his parents liked each other or how much he likes his kids. Answering questions people aren’t asking isn’t the way to win people over. Explaining why his approach to the deficit would help the economy while Obama’s would hurt helps some. So does explaining why his Medicare plan is better. Here is the thing: When Romney was talking about real stuff he was doing better and drove the debate. But he gave it up. I wonder if there is a psychological component to all this.

Like Carl says…

Pete’s too hard-core in the last four sentences, but I’ll say it again:

sigh.

Raymond: “They need to be introduced”. America is waiting.

1) The convention speech did succeed in humanizing Romney, which is important. However, that does not imply it make him look more presidential — some claim it did the opposite.

2) Whether it is a fair characterization or not, the narrative of Romney’s apparent change on Obamacare is going to look like he is merely responding to the polls, which is not a good thing. If media portrayal of him “flip-flopping” on one or two more issues sticks, either as a result of another interview or debate, you can stick a fork in his campaign.