From Erik Fehrnstrom, a top aide to Mitt Romney, on whether his guy has tacked too far to the right to beat Obama in November:
Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch — you can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.
Here’s the interesting thing about this comment. It’s provoked loads of mockery from liberals. It’s provoked a bunch of attacks from the other candidates. But among the conservative commentariat, it’s mostly just been sighs. I haven’t seen much outrage along the lines of “This just goes to show what a fake Romney is.” It’s mostly been disbelief that Fehrnstrom could say something so dumb; wan defenses that he wasn’t really saying anything we didn’t know already; and explanations that obviously Fehrnstrom was talking about campaign mechanics, not issues.
Conclusion: we are finally at the point where nobody on the right really wants to say anything bad about Romney. He’s got the nomination sewn up, and it’s time to start circling the wagons.
In other words: It’s over, Rick. Time to pack it up.
