After his recent actions, you may be wondering how much of Mitt Romney's defeat may be laid at the feet of his chief strategist Stuart Stevens, because his post-election spin to save his reputation is shockingly awful. His Washing Post op-ed yesterday was a masterpiece of self-delusion, white-washing, tough-talking spin (seriously, if you took out the couple of references to Obama's victory, you might think this was a "Why Mitt Won" restrospective) and just plain insulting commentary, especially the part (as I wrote about yesterday) his implication that Mitt won the rich, so he won the voters who matter. (Kos tackled the matter yesterday with far more detail then I did with this expert piece by piece mockery of Stevens.) No surprise, Stevens is being subjected to mockery for his spin (like this and here), including this sniping from none other then the ultimate Romney groupie herself, Jennifer Rubin.
But Stevens can't seem to shut his big yap and save himself further embarassment. Appearing on CBS This Morning today, he commended the Obama campaign for their victory, but then said Mitt ran a more national campaign:
"They ran very state specific issues, less of a national campaign. That was not why Governor Romney was running. He wanted to talk about big national issues - debt, entitlements, the future of the country. He wanted to put big questions before the country. And he did that. And I think the comparison of those two was striking. It was striking in the debates."
Boy, they just cling to Romney's performance in the first debate like a drowning rat to a piece of driftwood, don't they? (And at the same time they block out the second debate, where Romney's most memorable image was his Benghazi disaster and the third debate, where he pretty much became Obama's yes-man.)
Once again, the implication here is not subtle. "Yes, we lost, but only because Obama ran a petty campaign based on petty local issues. We were the big thinkers, the ones willing to tackle big ideas and big issues. Therefore, the moral victory is ours."
Yeah, I call horseshit on this too. If you ran the more "national campaign," Mr. Stevens, why was your candidate largely shut out of major regions of the country? Why is the GOP's base shrinking to the Deep South and the Plains states? Why, on these "big issues" that you claimed you tackled, did Mitt give no specific plans, change stances almost daily and largely shirk from actually taking them on? Any answers? Any?
Of course, there aren't any, because what's really going on is that Stevens is trying desperately to save his own reputation, especially among Republicans who are likely furious at him for blowing what they though was a sure-fire victory. Indeed, Stevens has been blamed for much of the Romney campaign's missteps, especially Clint Eastwood's Harvey act at the RNC, which was apparently his brainchild. So this is clearly a man fighting to salvage whatever professional repuation his has in the hopes that he'll get the chance to run a campaign higher than dogcatcher ever again.
My advice to Stuart; if you keep up with a defence like this, I suggest you check the unemployment office. I think you're entering the ranks of the long-term jobless.