Seven weeks out, Romney oversees campaign in disarray [View all]

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Seven weeks out, Romney oversees campaign in disarray

By Steve Benen

With the presidential election seven weeks from tomorrow, it's clear that Mitt Romney is not yet where he wants to be...Making matters considerably worse, however, is the evidence that Team Romney is itself in disarray...While "talk of infighting within the Romney headquarters" has been "percolating for months," we've clearly entered a new stage. Politico published a lengthy piece last night filled with unnamed aides pointing fingers and casting blame -- for Romney's muddled message, ineffective ads, disjointed convention, and useless speeches.

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It gets worse. Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei also report that Team Romney, just 50 days before the election, is going to "abruptly" shift its strategy, after Romney advisers concluded "they had to make a painful course correction."

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The talk about Romney's inevitable electoral demise still seems premature, but when it's mid-September and campaign insiders are turning on one another, and disagreeing with one another about the campaign's basic strategy, there's clearly a significant problem. We expect this from a campaign after it has lost, not before.

What's more, this isn't just inside baseball for campaign junkies; we're learning something important. One of Mitt Romney's principal selling points is that he has tremendous managerial skills thanks to his lucrative private-sector experience...And yet, Romney appears to be struggling due in part to a failure in leadership. What does that tell us about the kind of president he'd be?

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/09/17/13915913-seven-weeks-out-romney-oversees-campaign-in-disarray