MITT ROMNEY: THE RIGHT'S ANTI-PROPAGANDA MACHINE

Well, here it comes, as expected:

...In an interview with BuzzFeed, a Romney advisor offered details of the campaign's coming two-front attack, which the campaign expects will be echoed by the Super PAC....

The Pennsylvania Republican will "be defined by two things," the advisor said.

The first is a comparison to Barack Obama: "He's never run anything," said the advisor. The Pennyslvanian's experience is limited to roles as a legislator and legislative staffer. "The biggest thing he ever ran is his Senate office," he siad.

The second is a challenge to Santorum's Washington experience.

"They’re going to hit him very hard on earmarks, lobbying, voting to raise the federal debt limit five times," said the advisor. "The story of Santorum is going to be told over the next few weeks in a big way." ...

Is this going to work? To me it seems like thin gruel, but millions of dollars' worth of thin gruel will fill you up, I guess. When Gingrich was the top anti-Romney, I didn't think Newt's fans were going to care much about ancient ethics charges in Congress (there are Democrats in Congress!), but then I started reading stories about formerly pro-Newt or Newt-curious voters having a Pavlovian response of "Ethics!" when Gingrich's name was mentioned. So I guess it's a pretty effective technique.

This really might clear away the last obstacle standing between Romney and the nomination -- but what's it doing to the Republican Party? And I don't mean merely "Can Republicans stand a bruising primary battle?" I mean what is it doing to the myths right-wingers live by?

After decades of propaganda from talk radio, Regnery, Fox, and Koch, right-wingers believe conservatism is perfect and the emergence of a right-wing savior who kills all the bad guys (us) and gets rid of all the bad laws (everything we support) is actually possible. This is a religious faith, one that's carefully cultivated every day, every hour, via right-wing media.

And now Mitt Romney is laying waste to the belief system.

The faithful can see that he's not their perfect hero. Then, whenever he's challenged by someone they think might be their perfect hero, he floods the airwaves with the message that the apparent knight in shining armor is a fraud -- just like all the earlier knights.

That's why it must suck to be a right-winger these days: your likely standard-bearer's message is that everyone is flawed, everything is compromised and corrupted, and this is the best you're going to do -- a message that debunks every bit of right-wing propaganda you've absorbed over the past twenty years, which posits the existence of Pure Evil and (at least in theory, and certainly in the person of the now departed Saint Reagan) Pure Good.

In this way, Mitt Romney's campaign may be having more of a positive impact than all of the left's media outlets combined. It's repudiating the propaganda. It's destroying the wingnut dream.