Eric Fehrnstrom’s Etch-a-Sketch gaffe is truly one for the ages, but, hard as it is to believe, Mitt Romney’s response may have been worse. First, Mitt shouldn’t have commented at all. He should have distanced himself. Instead, in a colossal misunderstanding of roles, the presidential candidate did clumsy spin control for his top advisor: he validates the comment and offers a patently ridiculous gloss. Whoops.
The big blunder, though, was Mitt’s saying that the issues he’s running on “will be exactly the same” in the general election campaign. That’s like fact-checking catnip. Anything he says in the general election campaign will be compared to his vast catalog of primary position statements and, inevitably, they will not be exactly the same.
The ads almost write themselves.
