ROMNEY AND THE CRAZIES PLAY DULL COP, CRAZY COP

TBogg makes an interesting point:

Probably a coincidence that so many of the conservative bloggers who met with Romney back on 5/2 have gone birther. #crazytrain

— TBogg (@tbogg) May 18, 2012

I'm scanning the list of attendees and I'm not sure if there's a strict correlation between attendance and a recent increase in crazification, but it sure is interesting to me that Romney met with these folks and now we're seeing a huge overall crazification uptick on the right, at precisely the moment when we were told by the mainstream press that Romney would pivot to the center.

Romney hasn't really pivoted to the center; he's pretty much stayed where he's been all through the campaign, which is a bit to the left of crazy right. But now I suppose he may look (to centrist voters) as if he's pivoted to the center precisely because there's so much crazy on the right (see, e.g., threats to keep Obama off the Arizona ballot, from which Romney can now high-mindedly distance himself).

I suppose that's the plan: the crazies motivate their fellow crazies, Romney reassures centrist voters by keeping his distance from the crazies, and the GOP wins. I've been vacillating on whether the crazy stuff is upsetting Team Romney or is merely the dark side of his campaign, but I'm leaning toward the latter.

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UPDATE: I guess I missed the fact that Breitbart's Dana Loesch has been suggesting on Twitter that this, more or less, is the strategy. Charles Johnson and Tommy Christopher think there may be something to this.