Most Chilling Article I've Read All Year (With Update)

This is some pretty scary stuff (from CBS News):

Mitt Romney's campaign got its first hint something was wrong on the afternoon of Election Day, when state campaign workers on the ground began reporting huge turnout in areas favorable to President Obama: northeastern Ohio, northern Virginia, central Florida and Miami-Dade. Then came the early exit polls that also were favorable to the president.

But it wasn't until the polls closed that concern turned into alarm. They expected North Carolina to be called early. It wasn't. They expected Pennsylvania to be up in the air all night; it went early for the President. After Ohio went for Mr. Obama, it was over, but senior advisers say no one could process it.

"We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory," said one senior adviser. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming."

One adviser actually said that Romney "was shellshocked" by his loss last Tuesday, Paul Ryan seemed "genuinely shocked," and Ryan's wife "was shaken and cried softly."

Shellshocked?  Really?  Either this is all a bunch of crap, or our country came one additional poor Obama debate performance away from sending a shitload of idiots to the White House. 

Now I can't blame Romney and his people for feeling some confidence after the first debate, particularly given the crappy month Romney had prior to it.  And I also couldn't blame them for appearing confident on the outside during the closing days of the campaign.  But from the sound of the article, they actually thought they were going to win the election -- and reportedly thought that way right up to the bitter end -- even though the numbers clearly broke for Obama during the campaign's last couple weeks.

The fact that Romney himself couldn't see the writing on the wall is particularly stunning.  A businessman of his alleged caliber would presumably want to get the straight scoop on where he stood with the electorate.  But not this guy apparently, or anybody around him.

Unbelievable.

UPDATE:  From Kevin Drum:

Just in case you haven't read this yet, here's a remarkable statistic: even if Romney had won Ohio, Florida, and Virginia, he still would have lost. This makes it all the weirder that he and his team were so sure they were going to win all the way to the end. After all, it's plausible that if turnout had been slightly different he could have reeled in those three states, which he lost by only two or three points. But which state would have been the fourth? Pennsylvania? He lost it by 5 points. Colorado? 5 points. New Hampshire? 6 points. Iowa? 6 points. Nevada? 7 points. Wisconsin? 7 points. What possible turnout models could they have been cooking up in their back rooms that convinced them any of those states were truly in play?