Digby

Wow. This seems to me to be a huge move in a very different direction than any politician in the race. He's supporting the concept of strategic default which until now has been considered something only very sophisticated rich people were allowed to do. The CW is that it's a huge moral hazard for the rubes.

I will be shocked if Romney doesn't walk this back if it's picked up by the press. It's a class betrayal of epic proportions.

That's if he means what he's saying which I very much doubt. This has all the hallmarks of Mitt's compassion chip misfiring and mistakenly saying what these voters want to hear. If it isn't, and he sticks with it, we will see Romney to the left of the administration on the foreclosure crisis, which is fairly shocking. After all, this is what's happening right now:

So Perry is out of the race. What a coward. It's not as if it's just a matter of not throwing good money after bad. The election is in a couple of days. He obviously just couldn't face the humiliation of losing.

On paper he was the perfect anti-Romney and everyone expected him to make it a real race. But he was a flop from the very beginning, his poor showing in the debates and obvious lack of basic knowledge made him too much even for the neanderthals. Actually, I think that was his real problem —— on a subliminal level he just reminded everyone too much of George W. Bush and that particular personality type was just too uncomfortable even for the folks.

James Fallows has some reader follow-ups to an earlier discussion of Newtie's "food stamp president" quip. And they've made me rethink whether or not this is a real dogwhistle.

One of his readers says that it wasn't racist in the least, that it was simply a dry, philosophical point about the virtues of hard work. This, of course, is nonsense. I quoted this yesterday, but it bears repeating since this is all taking place in South Carolina, the home of Lee Atwater, who famously said this:

Here's some video of an arrogant white man lecturing a black man about what black people have a right to be offend by --- on Martin Luther King day:

As I've noted numerous times, conservatives are very confused these days. Of course, many liberals are confused as well. (I won't even talk about the libertarians.) Seems to be the zeitgeist. Perhaps tough times and elite failure always have this effect. And who knows, out of the ashes, perhaps will rise a better society. I know I'm looking forward to seeing the plan for how all these disparate, contradictory ideas will produce one.

But as much as dissonance and confusion are overwhelming the political system in general, this attack on Mitt Romney by Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry has to take the cake.

Greg Sargent says:

This general election will turn heavily on a battle over the two candidates’ visions of capitalism and the proper role of government in regulating it. Yet the leading GOP candidates are on record arguing that Romney’s practice of it — which he regularly cites as proof of his ability to create jobs, as a generally constructive force and even as synonymous with the American way — is not really capitalism at all, but a destructive, profit-driven perversion of it. Thanks to them, this is no longer a left-wing argument. As the GOP candidates have themselves confirmed, this argument reflects concerns about Wall Street excess and lack of accountability that are thoroughly mainstream, and you’ll be seeing plenty of footage of these Republicans making it in battleground states this fall.

Do you think that's how it's going to go? It's certainly pretty to think so. But it will only happen if the media can restrain themselves from chasing the shiny objects that the campaigns throw out there.

Really darling, if you have to worry about paying bills you have no business running for office. Needing money for your expenses distracts from your real job --- delivering for your fellow millionaires.

Well hell. Bachman's gone, which is going to make the GOP debates far less entertaining. And frankly, that's the only real interest I have in these primaries.