Campaigns have a way of working like the health or infirmities of a body. Virtuous cycles build on themselves or one bad thing bumps into another and then suddenly the whole thing starts cascading out of control.
I along with several others have observed over the last few days that Democratic Senate candidates sort of out of the blue are doing really well across the country. And the spike in their fortunes seems aligned with President Obama’s.
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson was the first to come out and say today that, “Heck, what do you expect? My numbers are down because I’m running with Mitt Romney.”
Now Romney surrogate John Sununu, perhaps the most ill-tempered campaign surrogate in history, is whacking back at Thompson saying he “sounds like Barack Obama trying to blame it on somebody else.”
Most people in the country aren’t going to see this little back and forth. But if you’re someone running the Romney operation and you can manage to step back and get a few moments of perspective you’ve got to think to yourself, “WTF? This isn’t helping. What are we doing here?”
Romney is in a serious battle right now with the L-word: Loser. Once it starts to stick it becomes a massive obstacle to making any progress toward victory or anything else good.
