We just witnessed one of the worst weeks of Mitt Romney’s second presidential campaign, Democrats say.
And it’s only Wednesday.
Democrats watched last night’s brawl of a Republican presidential debate on the edge of their seats, thrilled to see Romney get the business from Rick Perry and the other candidates on stage.
They see Romney as stumbling badly under fire from Perry over the 2006 story of Romney’s hiring and firing of a landscaping company that employed illegal immigrants.
But that wasn’t the only Romney moment from the past few days Democrats are reveling in.
“This was one of the worst weeks of Mitt Romney’s campaign,” a Democratic official told TPM Tuesday night. “From claiming in last week’s debate that middle class tax cuts are nothing more than “little band aids” to telling the Las Vegas Review-Journal yesterday that the way to solve the housing crisis is to expedite foreclosures (and doubling down on that statement in the debate).”
President Obama’s chief campaign adviser, David Axelrod, told CBS Wednesday that Romney’s recent days on the campaign trail show a candidate without much substance.
“He has been bumping along with a quarter of the vote in the Republican primary and there seems to be resistance to him,” Axelrod said. “I think there is a sense there is no core to him.”
DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz jumped on the Romney dogpile in her statement to reporters following the debate.
“Not surprisingly, we saw more flip-flops, inconsistencies, and out of touch policies from Mitt Romney,” she said. “When Romney was challenged on health care, he said again that he never supported a plan like his for the national stage, even though he did on several occasions.”
Wasserman Schultz said Romney “doubled down” on the foreclosure comments from the LVRJ.
“Romney’s proposal treats the homes of honest, hard-working Americans like nothing more than Monopoly pieces that bankers can use to get rich,” the DNC chair said. “It is callous and appalling.”
The real takeway for Democrats from the debate seems to be the moment Romney battled with Perry over that 2006 illegal immigration story.
“Romney said he wouldn’t have undocumented immigrants work for him because he was running for office–not because it was the wrong thing to do,” the Democratic official told TPM. The moment serves to reinforce “the worst perceptions about Romney as someone who is convictionless and willing to say anything to improve his electoral chances.”
“These issues aren’t just problematic in the short term, but would be fodder for a general election,” the official continued.
Proving the Democrats’ point, the party put out this web video Wednesday morning cataloging what they see as a string of Romney fails in the last few days culminating in Tuesday’s debate:
