Josh Barro, of Bloomberg.com may have summed it up best in Today, Mitt Romney Lost the Election.
You can mark my prediction now: A secret recording from a closed-door Mitt Romney fundraiser, released today by David Corn at Mother Jones, has killed Mitt Romney's campaign for president.
On the tape, Romney explains that his electoral strategy involves writing off nearly half the country as unmoveable Obama voters. As Romney explains, 47 percent of Americans "believe that they are victims." He laments: "I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
So what's the upshot? "My job is not to worry about those people," he says. He also notes, describing President Obama's base, "These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax."
This is an utter disaster for Romney.
Short and sweet.
Stick a fork in Mitt Romney, he's done.
But, others are not as kind and see in Romney a "sneering Plutocrat," with a deep contempt for regular Americans.
Jonathan Chait writes The Real Romney Captured On Tape Turns Out To Be A Sneering Plutocrat
Mitt Romney’s secretly recorded comments at a fundraiser are such an event – they reveal something vital about Romney, and they disqualify his claim to the presidency. ...
Instead the video exposes an authentic Romney as a far more sinister character than I had imagined. Here is the sneering plutocrat, fully in thrall to a series of pernicious myths that are at the heart of the mania that has seized his party. He believes that market incomes in the United States are a perfect reflection of merit. ...
The revelations in this video come to me as a genuine shock. I have never hated Romney. I presumed his ideological makeover since he set out to run for president was largely phony, even if he was now committed to carry through with it, and to whatever extent he’d come to believe his own lines, he was oblivious or naïve about the damage he would inflict upon the poor, sick and vulnerable. It seems unavoidable now to conclude that Romney’s embrace of Paul Ryanism is born of actual contempt for the looters and moochers, a class war on behalf of his own class.
France 24 reported
Romney rocked by secret video on 'dependent' Americans that Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina pounced on Romney's remark.
"It's shocking that a candidate for President of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as 'victims,' entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take 'personal responsibility' for their lives," he said.
"It's hard to serve as president for all Americans when you've disdainfully written off half the nation."
Chris Cillizza writes,
Mitt Romney's Darkest Hour:
The video will fuel the growing sentiment within the Republican chattering class that Romney is in the process of losing a winnable race. That means the second-guessing that goes on privately in every campaign will go more public. And the more public it becomes, the longer it takes Romney and his team to move beyond unhelpful process stories focused on whether his own party thinks he’s blowing it.
To be clear: Declaring the race over — as some people will do in the next 48 hours — is a mistake. Seven weeks remain before voters vote and what looks determinative to the outcome now might look very different come November 1.
But, anyone who thinks that Romney isn’t weathering his darkest days as a candidate right now would be sorely mistaken.
Terrell Jermaine Starr, Mitt Romney: I’d Be Winning If My Parents Were Mexican; My Job Is Not To ‘Worry About Those People’
Oh, and he goes on to say: “[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” ...
We really shouldn’t be surprised by the new video showing the GOP candidate disparage “those people” and suggesting that, if his father was Mexican, he’d be ahead in the polls. ...
In the video, Romney reveals what he truly feels about “those people” he “tried” to woo at a recent NAACP convention and millions of other Americans with whom he struggles to strike a cord.
John Cassidy of the New Yorker, writes
HOW BAD IS IT FOR ROMNEY? YOU DECIDE
Eight weeks before Election Day, Mitt Romney is:
(a) Done. Put a fork in him.
(b) Battered, bruised, and almost ready for shipping to his multi-car garage in La Jolla.
(c) Struggling but by no means out of it.
(d) Cunningly sitting off the pace in preparation for a late surge.
(e) Doing well and headed to win “fairly comfortably.” (That’s another quote from Stuart Stevens.)
Please feel free to use these comments to express how, and why Mitt Romney make you feel, or links and quotes to other great articles and quotes, or even open thread. I finished this article at 3:40 EST, so scheduled this for publication at 7:00 when more be awake, so I'm probably asleep now. I'll check back in as soon as I wake up. I might even make popcorn for breakfast as today should be a fantastically entertaining day for reactions.