Mitt Romney is a terrible candidate. OK, he can give a bullying, breathy debate performance, but he lacks a core.
His biggest argument for being "not Obama" and getting votes for that has been the unemployment rate. But that's now down below 8% - and people might be getting to feel even more positive about his foe.
So now what? Annul it by making it illegitimate.
Romney does this anyway. He gaffes, and then assumes that having his campaign "clean it up" by saying that he didn't mean it will make it go away.
The right-wing tax plan Mittens has run on for over a year? Not working, not popular? Gone - and with an "I never said that."
Off-shore tax breaks for companies? No such thing exists. Truth, be damned.
This strategy of annulment is the ostrich hoping everybody else follows his lead and puts his head in the sand. It hasn't worked.
So now, we have the unemployment in a good spot for President Obama to win re-election. It will bolster confidence among voters in the President, excitement among Democrats, and blunt the central argument of the Romney campaign.
How to annul it? Claim it isn't legit. Send Jack Welch (how sad is that), and Allen West (no surprise there) and others to claim that the Obama campaign fixed the unemployment number. Even though the weight of evidence shows that even Nixon couldn't get to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (and history tells us he tried).
The problem is it sounds crazy. It looks crazy. Because it is crazy. And right now, crazy and Republican will only cost them even more votes.
They may have even had this strategy on the books all campaign long. Well, good luck with that Mitt.