I MUST NOT THINK BAD THOUGHTS

Voters in France and Greece repudiated the austeritycrats over the weekend. I should be happy, but I'm having trouble ignoring evidence that American voters might be on the verge of taking the country in the opposite direction.

While a lot of us have been assuming that Mitt Romney is coming off as a hopeless, pathetic loser, he appears to be quietly closing the gap with Barack Obama -- he's tied with Obama according to Talking Points Memo's poll of polls, he's beating Obama by 1 in a new Politico/Battleground/George Washington University poll, and he's all but closed the gap with Obama in swing states according to Gallup.

I still see Romney as personally unappealing and the Obama campaign as skilled at targeting key constituencies; that's why Obama is likely to win a close election in November, not because Americans truly understand who's screwing them and how unashamedly Romney would defend the screwers' interests as president. An Obama win is far from inevitable. What the Europeans call austerity is what a lot of Americans regard (or can be persuaded to regard) as freedom, which sure sounds like something that will inevitably lead to prosperity, and that's what Romney is peddling. We never have the debate that's taking place in Europe. Maybe we will after the next time we elect a Republican as president and that Republican goes Scott Walker on us. I'm just sorry it'll take that to start the discussion across the country (i.e., outside lefty blogs and Occupy encampments), if the discussion even starts then.