Romney and the Crazies Play Dull Cop, Crazy Cop

[muriel_volestrangler]

TBogg makes an interesting point:

Probably a coincidence that so many of the conservative bloggers who met with Romney back on 5/2 have gone birther. #crazytrain

I'm scanning the list of attendees and I'm not sure if there's a strict correlation between attendance and a recent increase in crazification, but it sure is interesting to me that Romney met with these folks and now we're seeing a huge overall crazification uptick on the right, at precisely the moment when we were told by the mainstream press that Romney would pivot to the center.

Romney hasn't really pivoted to the center; he's pretty much stayed where he's been all through the campaign, which is a bit to the left of crazy right. But now I suppose he may look (to centrist voters) as if he's pivoted to the center precisely because there's so much crazy on the right (see, e.g., threats to keep Obama off the Arizona ballot, from which Romney can now high-mindedly distance himself).
...
UPDATE: I guess I missed the fact that Breitbart's Dana Loesch has been suggesting on Twitter that this, more or less, is the strategy. Charles Johnson and Tommy Christopher think there may be something to this.

http://nomoremister.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/romney-and-crazies-play-dull-cop-crazy.html

The LGF post:

After Secret Meeting With Romney Campaign, Breitbart Employees Say He Supports Their Smears

But some in the right-wing blogosphere think that Romney actually is offering “wink wink nudge nudge” support for the smear campaigns, and is simply employing the strategy of “good cop, bad cop” alongside his surrogates. For example, here’s what one Breitbart.com editor had to say (chronological from bottom to top):

Now, I’m tempted to dismiss this as another example of Breitbart.com editors being completely unaware when everyone is laughing at them. But on the other hand, Breitbart representatives did recently participate in a secret meeting with the Romney campaign about campaign messaging. You’d think that if the Romney campaign wanted ridiculous race-baiting campaigns or birther conspiracy theories off the table, they could have made that clear.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/40368_After_Secret_Meeting_With_Romney_Campaign_Breitbart_Employees_Say_He_Supports_Their_Smears

Makes sense. Get the Crazies (some of whom are showcased on Fox) to push the birther or racist shit - and any of it looks like it's gone too far, then Romney denounces it to get praised for 'reasonableness'. There had to be some reason for meeting with a bunch of mouth-breathers who couldn't donate to his campaign. Fly, my pretties, fly!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

1. It does make sense. All he has to do is appear to be more sane than the Tea Baggers.

The bar is set low for him, but that's always been the case when it comes to Republicans. All they have to do is deliver a speech not written by their own hand (ahem, Sarah Palin), and they are deemed "winners."