Why divisions in Romney campaign might matter
(Read article summary)It's not a good sign when campaign aides start sniping at one another, in public, weeks before an election. What's striking in this case is that Mitt Romney is just three percentage points behind. Staff shake-up in the works?
All happy presidential campaigns are alike; each unhappy presidential campaign is unhappy in its own way. For the Mitt Romney campaign, the problem today is that it appears to be an unhappy effort whose particular divisions are on full display in the media with the election now only a few weeks away.
In this case, a lengthy piece in Politico by Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei about unrest among Mr. Romney aides has served as a floodgate-opener. It depicts Romney’s top strategist, Stuart Stevens, as mercurial, skewers Mr. Stevens’s efforts to draft Romney’s convention speech as disorganized, and in general allows unnamed staffers and outside advisers lots of room to complain about one another.
Now, Republicans have long asserted that the mainstream media are biased against them and will do whatever they can to keep President Obama in office. They’ve also complained specifically about Politico, saying it’s full of former Democratic operatives. But for all that, the pushback on Monday’s piece from the right has been half-hearted. Some conservatives are using it as an opening to air their own worries about Romney’s effort.
