What the hell is Romney's message?

Excuse me this morning while I vent about some of my cognitive dissonance from reading reports on this presidential campaign. But it seems to me like the message we've been hearing lately from the MSM is that Romney is running a good campaign and that President Obama has "stumbled" lately. When that's not the narrative, everyone with a microphone (no matter how small or inconsequential) thinks its time to be an armchair quarterback in telling the President "You MUST do _______ now! Or its over!"

Excuse me...did we learn NOTHING from 4 years ago?!



As I watch this campaign lately, what I'm left wondering is "What the hell is Romney's message?"

First, he wanted to tout his experience as a vulture capitalist businessman. The President responded.



Then there's his record as Governor of Massachusetts. The response:



And when challenged with this, the Romney campaign's response was:

Eric Fehrnstrom told ABC, "Can I just say, on the jobs question, because this comes up repeatedly that Massachusetts was 47 out of 50 in terms of jobs growth. Actually, when Mitt Romney arrived, Massachusetts was an economic basket house." Kevin Madden, naturally, took the same line on "Meet the Press." On Fox News, Ed Gillespie went so far as to suggest the job losses in Romney's first year shouldn't be held against him.

Seriously? After trashing President Obama for a slow recovery after coming into office during the worst recession since the Great Depression, they want us to feel sorry for Romney because times were so tough when he took office? Breathtaking hypocrisy! 

For the life of me I can't figure out what this candidate's actual message is other than "Obama bad." And why any voter or media personality would think that cuts it in times like this is beyond me.

To all of you hand ringers on our side who can't figure out what the Obama campaign is doing with all of this,  Peter Fenn explains it to you.

For Obama to not engage in the battle, to focus on soft, fuzzy, feel-good ads would be a drastic mistake. The Romney team does not want the campaign to be a comparison of the two candidates and their records and approaches; they want it to be a simple referendum. They would simply like to avoid making this a choice between two candidates. That is why they prefer to be on the attack from the start.

So if the Romney campaign wants this whole conversation to be about "Obama bad," every day that we spend talking about his record is a day they loose the battle to make this a referendum rather than a choice.

And when it comes to a choice, its clear Romney's got nothin'.

As my good friend Robinswing would say at this point..."Now run and tell that."