Why Romney lost

Speaking of pro football, did you ever watch the second half of a four-touchdown blowout, or a 10-0 game in baseball? You know, when the announcers start having long conversations about the steakhouse they ate dinner at, or some great old political player from 1953? What are an army of political commentators going to talk about between now and November? That time they got whomped upside the head back in Chicago in '68? Too bad they don't have September call-ups in politics -- it would be good to see if Chris Christie or Andrew Cuomo can hit a major-league curveball before they get a shot at playing every day next season, which is 2016.

What I'm trying to say is, it's over, people. The new swing-state polls that came out this morning are devastating for Mitt Romney, the political equivalent of fumbling on the 1-yeard-line and giving up a 90-yard touchdown on the last play of the half (like that could ever happen). The GOP is going to need a Miracle of the Meadowlands II-type event (like, a Spanish Civil War II...hey, could happen) to retake the White House.

So why did Romney lose? I'm not going to give you the full answer -- gotta save something to get through the next five weeks.

But after Tuesday, when the piece entitled "'What's Wrong With Pennsylvania?'" ran in the newspaper, I got ths voicemail. There's no way to verify (kind of like everything published here) but the man claimed to be a member of the Teamsters Union, exactly the kind of middle-class, blue-collar voter supposed to carry Romney to victory.

He said:

"When we saw his tax returns for 2011 and the guy made 14 million and didnt work one friggin day -- I thjink thats  enough to turn off blue-collar people...I was at a covnvertion of Teamsters and that's all they talked about and thats a big goddarned thing to overcome -- how somebody makes 14 million without even working and we're skimping by, you know?"

In other words, what were the best minds of the GOP thinking when they pushed this guy? They would have been much better off nominating boring ol' Tim Pawlenty, with authentic blue-collar roots and a non-birther conservative. He probably wouldn't have won, but at least he wouldn't have embarassed the party.

And we would have never talked about rolling down the windows on a 747.