A Romney aide tells Buzzfeed's McKay Coppins:
"[Romney] has said Obama's a nice fellow, he's just in over his head," the adviser said. "But I think the governor himself believes this latest round of attacks that have impugned his integrity and accused him of being a felon go so far beyond that pale that he's really disappointed. He believes it's time to vet the president. He really hasn't been vetted; McCain didn't do it."
Hence, the coming kitchen sink campaign. But where in the world do conservatives get this idea? It's a fantasy that enables them to continue to blame the liberal media for Barack Obama's elevation.
But look. McCain did vet him. And Palin did it. And Hillary did it. And yes, even the media did it. Why have you heard of Rev. Wright and Andrew Reszko? You read about them in the media, that's how. Reporters dug hard into the Reszko story about the home purchase, but no smoking gun was found.
How many people are going to care that Obama did "a little blow, when [he] could afford it." as he puts it in his first book? I just don't think that many. The guy is the president. He's been there for four years. He's not a friend of terrorists (far from it). Bill Ayres is not the secretary of education, and Al Sharpton is not the attorney general. An incumbent is a known quantity.
Now, if the Romney people have some game-changing info on Reszko or something, that's another matter. Maybe they do. But it would have to be awfully explosive material. As always, they confuse the intensity of their base on these questions with the views of middle America, which remain quite favorable toward Obama on a personal level. I can visualize ads with frightening music and images that ask, "How much do you really know about Barack Obama?" To which most people will likely answer, unless what follows is a serious stunner: "Oh, enough."
Romney is a just a whiny boy. What he doesn't understand, because of the weird morality of the world he lives in, is that when you pull stunts like telling the world you left a job without revealing it was only a leave of absence, and you say you did no work but continued to make piles of money, and you don't see why it's a problem, you have impugned your own integrity. No one else need do it for you.
