Mitt Romney once again proves that destroying his opponents is the only thing he's good at

65,000 seats. 1,200 people. No enthusiasm.
 

Mitt Romney's big Florida win on Jan. 31 turned out to be not so big after all for one simple reason: Everybody quickly figured that Romney had won not by selling his own strengths to Florida Republicans, but by destroying Newt Gingrich. In the process, Romney had driven his own negatives through the roof, and while he'd dispensed with Gingrich—at least for the time being—Rick Santorum was the ultimate beneficiary.

Flash forward three weeks and three days, and now Mitt Romney is in the middle of running nearly the exact same playbook against Santorum that he ran against Gingrich. And as it did with Gingrich, Romney's playbook appears to be working. At least as of Friday afternoon, Santorum had lost his lead thanks to attacks from Romney's Super PAC and Romney himself. (Romney's campaign is even bragging about it's prowess at negative campaigning, just as it did before Florida.)

But as his failure at Ford Field underscores, Mitt Romney has still got the same problem now that he had then: Despite having been a presidential candidate since at least 2007, he cannot articulate a credible and compelling rationale for why he should be elected. He might have world-class skills when it comes to exploiting his opponents' weaknesses (a skill that in the case of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum really isn't terribly impressive), but when it comes to making the case for his own candidacy, the best Romney do is give an empty speech to an even emptier stadium.