The Summer of Republican Discontent

John McCain had this to say on Fox News Sunday about the Obama Campaign:

“I’ve got to give them credit, they have succeeded to a certain degree, of painting — with nothing but attack ads — Mitt Romney into something that’s not an acceptable alternative, because he can’t run on his record.”

Well, Obama and his people can't take all the credit.  Romney was already pretty unlikeable prior to becoming the presumptive GOP nominee, and his catastrophic overseas trip didn't help his image much.  But the Democrats have indeed done a spectacular job of defining Romney in a way that makes him less palatable to the American people, so much so that it forced Romney to make the game-changing pick of Paul Ryan as his running mate instead of a less risky choice for VP.

It must be frustrating for Republicans right now. We have a Democratic president whom the GOP hates and who should be vulnerable given the sluggishness of the recovery, yet Obama currently enjoys sizable leads in many national polls and is leading in a great majority of swing state polls. 

Sure, I know it is still early and polls don't mean a whole lot right now; but the Romney Campaign and its billionaire buddies have spent something like $100 million in ads attacking Obama, yet it is Romney's poll numbers that are on the slide.  Of course, it doesn't help that the presumptive GOP nominee is disliked by nearly everyone and is running so scared that he won't release his tax returns -- even though Romney insisted that his potential VP picks provide their returns --  and won't give us any specifics as to what he'd do if elected.

Just a few months ago, Republicans not happy with Romney could find some comfort in the strong chance that the Democrats would lose control of the Senate in November.  But it now looks like the Senate just might stay Democrat given that the GOP has decided to award Senate primary wins to Radical Tea-Baggers, particularly in races that the Democrats are most vulnerable.  Some of these Tea-Baggers, such as Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin, make folks like Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle look look like Marxist-Leninists.

Oh, and by the way, you can put this one in the "Are You Fucking Kidding Me?" column:

Mitt Romney, battered by Democratic attacks over his Bain Capital record and taxes, is calling on President Obama to agree to a truce over his business career.

“Our campaign would be — helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and that attacks based upon — business or family or taxes or things of that nature,” Romney said, according to excerpts of an upcoming interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd released Friday.

I think it is hilarious that a guy who crushed his opponents in the GOP primary by running a very negative campaign is now whining about the same thing being done to him. Newsweek was right -- Romney is a wimp.