It seemed like a good idea at the time

Romney is the Republicans' Dukakis.  The candidate that forces even the most recalcitrant old-schooler to say "we've got to figure out something better than this."

We use to link Jon Stewart at lot here, and generally stopped, I think because it was just redundant.  But imagine an undecided voter watching this:

It's not a routine Stewart takedown, it's Daryl Dawkins smashing the backboard (lest we forget).

Romney is doing this because he has to tell three different stories to three different constituencies (Wall Street, the religious right, and the undecided independents) and just can't do so coherently.  His incoherence is not just his personal shortcoming, it is the incoherence of the entire GOP.  Reagan and the Bushes dealt with this by appealing to conservative ideals without actually enacting any, and by faking right (espoused conservatism) and going left (weaponized Keynesianism) on fiscal matters.  This works great until the balance sheet is wrecked, which is why Clinton and Obama had so little fiscal latitude when they took office.

We're also getting the first look at the full 7-day Gallup sample period since the 47% remark.  It is not pretty.

Anyway, the game wears thin.  This piece by Andrew Hacker is instructive:  in 1990 31% of Americans considered themselves Republicans, now it's 24%.  Hard to see where they think this is going.