I imagine you've already seen the recent news about Romney's speech at a fundraiser that was secretly recorded. It's all kind of depressing. Not that he would hold such views; I may have called Romney the least evil of the Republican candidates, but that's very much damning with faint praise. Not to mention that the idea that a rich business owner who'd outsourced jobs and paid little in tax should look down on the poor is less shocking, more expected.
It's not that Romney has defended his views once they've been made public. That was pretty much forced; apologising would appear weak without convincing anyone.
No, what depresses me is that it probably doesn't matter. The Republican base will, if anything, think better of him for this. And swing voters either don't care, won't remember or won't even notice.
As an aside, one odd thing about this election is that Obama seems to be favoured to be win, but probably more narrowly than last time out. The last time a sitting president was re-elected with a smaller share of the popular vote was FDR in 1944; but that was his fourth term, and just running for a third was controversial. Neglecting him, I think we have to go back to Jackson in 1832, when several states did not even hold presidential elections. So we have the prospect of something that has never happened before to consider.
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