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Two funny things happened this week on Mitt Romney's way to the White House. First, the man who cried "let Detroit go bankrupt" announced "I'll take a lot of credit" for President Obama's million-job saving rescue of the American auto industry. But just as telling was the Republican's claim that, despite Obama's "Forward" campaign slogan, it was the President who was "looking backward." After all, Mitt Romney isn't merely offering an even more reactionary resurrection of George W. Bush's failed policies. As it turns out, from his charges on immigration reform and women's issues to labeling Obama an out of touch "Marie Antoinette" and so much else, Romney's strategy is call to the kettle black.

(Click a link below for the details on each.)

• "Looking Backward"
• "Fairness"
• "Out of Touch"
• "Spent Too Much Time at Harvard"
• "Hide-and-Seek Campaign"
• "Broke His Promise to Hispanics"
• "Respect Women in All Those Choices That They Make"

"Looking Backward"

In April, the RNC's Alexandra Franceschi gave away the game when she explained that even after the calamitous Bush recession which began over four years ago, the2012 GOP economic platform would be the Bush program, "just updated." As a quick glance at Mitt Romney's proposals shows, Franceschi has a gift for understatement.

Romney, after all, is promising massive tax cuts which would deliver the lion's share of their winnings to the very richest Americans, his family included. (His 20 percent across-the-board tax cut is simply a tired retread of Bob Dole's failed 1996 plan, one that nevertheless steers a third of its benefits to the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of Americans.) He nevertheless pledges to balance the budget even while boosting defense spending. And this latest scion of a proud Republican family would like to privatize Social Security and leave Americans to fend for themselves in the private health insurance marketplace.

Undaunted, Romney slammed the President this week in East Lansing, Michigan:

"Looking backward won't solve the problems of today, nor will it take advantage of the opportunities of tomorrow," Romney said. "His are the policies of the past. The challenges of the present and the promise of tomorrow must be met by a new and bold vision for the future, and I will bring it."

Despite the conclusion of the nonpartisan CBO and the overwhelming consensus of economists that Obama's actions saved the U.S. from "Great Depression 2.0," Romney has insisted for months that the President "made the economy worse." Unfortunately for Mitt, "we are not stupid."

"Fairness"

Barack Obama has made "fairness" a central theme of his reelection campaign. And with good reason. After all, at a time of record income inequality and the lowest federal tax burden since 1950, Both Mitt Romney and his budgetary twin Paul Ryan would deliver a massive tax cut windfall for the rich, paying for it by gutting the social safety net each pretends to protect. Each would end Medicare as we know it with a premium support gambit that would dramatically shift health care costs to America's seniors. While increasing defense spending, the House Budget Chairman and the GOP frontrunner would repeal the Affordable Care and leave at least 30 million people without insurance. And despite their mutual pledges to end many tax loopholes and deductions to fund their gilded-class giveaway, neither Paul Ryan nor Mitt Romney has the courage to say which ones. As a result, these supposed deficit hawks would actually add trillions more in red ink to the national debt.

Nevertheless, Romney used the occasion of his Northeast primary sweep three weeks ago to portray himself as the crusader for fairness:

"We will stop the unfairness of urban children being denied access to the good schools of their choice; we will stop the unfairness of politicians giving taxpayer money to their friends' businesses; we will stop the unfairness of requiring union workers to contribute to politicians not of their choosing; we will stop the unfairness of government workers getting better pay and benefits than the taxpayers they serve; and we will stop the unfairness of one generation passing larger and larger debts on to the next."

Afterwards, The Democratic Strategist translated Romney's cynically transparent gimmick, "We will twist and distort the concept of fairness to justify bashing government workers, crushing labor unions and privatizing public schools."

"Out of Touch"

Four years ago, the campaign of John McCain - a hundred-millionaire who literally lost count of how many homes he owned - unsuccessfully tried to portray Barack Obama as an out-of-touch, arugula-eating elitist who vacationed in exotic Hawaii. Now Mitt Romney has branded President Obama a modern day Marie Antoinette, an "out of touch" occupant of the White House whose message to financially struggling Americans is "let them eat cake."

That might not be the wisest strategy.

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Mary McBroom told us her story at a closed Starbucks restaurant in Detroit. It's one we've heard too many times before: For 18 years she worked hard for her employer, GE before discovering GE cared less about her than she did about the company. Mary was not an unskilled worker: she wired circuit boards, most recently for Chevy Volt charging stations. Hired in 1991, she was a college graduate who had worked her way up in the company from entry level wages to $23 per hour in 2009.

Along the way, she raised two daughters and sent them to college, bought a house, saved for retirement, and did all the things "responsible people" do. Mary is a college graduate with a passion for giving her job her all. Even as she told her story, it was evident that more than feeling angry, she was hurt.

In 2009 GE laid Mary off due to the economic downturn with the promise that there was always a possibility she could be called back. On May 13, 2011 she was called back to the same job she had before the layoff. GE trumpeted the recall as a Big Move, publishing a "Welcome Back" to the eleven employees.

Yet, on her first day back she was told that she was classified as a "competitive wage" employee, and would be paid $13 per hour to do the same work she had been paid $23 per hour to do. She was expected to work alongside co-workers making the higher wage who had managed to get their 20 years of service so they could be considered "legacy employees." Worse, some of the coworkers receiving the higher rate had been hired one week before Mary. Whether they escaped the layoff or there was another reason, the inescapable fact was that employees were working side-by-side doing the same work, but one employee was paid $13 per hour and the other was being paid $23.67 per hour, and everybody knew it.

Mary's shock quickly turned to action, and she wrote to Human Resources in June, 2011 asking them to reconsider her classification and asking about the status of her pension, which was based on years of service and compensation levels. She also wrote a letter to Jeffrey Immelt expressing her concern that she was being recalled to a job she had done well for 18 years, only to suffer a 40 percent pay cut.

GE's response was to send out an investigator to assess the situation without interviewing any of the "competitive wage" employees causing supervisors and coworkers to be hostile to those who complained. In a second letter to Jeffrey Immelt on September 30, 2011, Mary and her fellow "competitive wage" coworkers asked Immelt to intervene and restore her pay to its former level.

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In case you're unfamiliar with Eric Fehrnstrom, let me introduce you to him. The original creator of the "Etch-a-Sketch" candidate, Fehrnstrom is Mitt Romney's brain, much like Karl Rove was George Bush's brain. He's counting on each and every person out there to suffer from collective amnesia, too, or just love the Etch-a-Sketch enough to appreciate it when he erases and re-draws a narrative.

Today's picture concerns the auto bailouts and Romney's role in them. Mr. Fehrnstrom would like you to forget the title of Romney's 2008 op-ed, calling to "let Detroit go bankrupt." Or his 2012 op-ed, where he reiterated his 2008 stance.

But if you don't remember those, maybe you remember the primary debates, where he sneered at the bailouts (begun under George W. Bush, by the way) as a "giveaway to the UAW." If you don't, just watch the video at the top of the page.

Today we have the New and Improved Mitt Romney position on the auto bailout, courtesy of Fehrnstrom, via The Hill:

One of Mitt Romney's top advisers said Saturday that President Obama's decision to bailout Chrysler and General Motors was actually Romney's idea.

"[Romney's] position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama followed. I know it infuriates them to hear that," Eric Fehrnstrom, senior adviser to the Romney campaign, said.

"The only economic success that President Obama has had is because he followed Mitt Romney's advice."
[...]

"The fact that the auto companies today are profitable is because they've shed costs," Fehronstrom said. "The reason they shed those costs and have got their employee labor contracts less expensive is because they went through that managed bankruptcy process. It is exactly what Mitt Romney told them to do."

Welcome to the 2012 general election campaign, where up is down, right is left, wrong is right, and whatever you said yesterday is yesterday's truth because today is a new day with a new truth. This is the cynical Romney campaign at it's lying-est best.

This is an outright lie, and it wasn't Fehrnstrom going off the reservation. It was planned, it relies upon a gullible and uninformed public to accept the lie as truth because memories are too short to remember yesterday and for the most part, the part of the press that reaches the most viewers hasn't bothered to actually call a lie a lie or to pull them up short on any of the lies they've told, so why not?

This is who Mitt Romney is, and Fehrnstrom is merely amplifying it:

[Romney]’s not stupid. He’s not a stumbling, gaffe-prone doof. He’s a soulless, cynical robot who has no problem with saying exactly what he thinks voters want to hear, and he doesn’t care if the subsequent contradictions, flip-flops and nonsense are utterly obvious and transparent. Voters expect politicians to be two-faced and inconsistent, so why not say whatever it takes to make it through the week and over the next hurdle?

The now-infamous line from Romney staffer Eric Fehrnstrom about the campaign resetting its language when the general election begins — like an Etch-A-Sketch — was one of the most glaring examples of meta-cynicism in the history of modern presidential politics. Not only was Fehrnstrom describing the cynical strategy in detail in front of a national audience, but he was cynical enough to believe that voters wouldn’t care — they expect candidates to be shifty, so why the hell not?

Romney is easily the most jaded, cynical presidential politician since Richard Nixon. He operates with the hubristic attitude that voters expect him to be shifty, and therefore he’s allowed to be shifty. The expectation gives him permission to be that caricature.

About one in five people (800,000 people) face hunger or a lack of food daily in metro Detroit. One in four children face hunger or a lack of food in the tri-county area, and half of all children in the City of Detroit are hungry or have no food. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's response? Cut even more of the shredded safety net. Unemployment benefits were cut from 26 weeks to 20, a 48-month lifetime limit was put on cash assistance programs and an asset test for food stamps that 38 other states removed was added. (Michiganders can't look for much help from the GOP presidential candidates, either.)

Just heartbreaking....

Last week, while working on a documentary about hunger in Michigan, Russ Russell had an experience that left him speechless.

“I was visiting with this family and one of the little boys said he wasn’t going to eat,” said Russell, development director for Forgotten Harvest, a Detroit-based nonprofit that rescues and redistributes fresh food. “He said, ‘Oh, I’m not eating dinner because it’s my brother’s turn tonight. Tomorrow is my night.’”

On Wednesday, state officials charged with helping to meet the needs of Michigan’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens publicly told a much different story. Maura Corrigan, director of Michigan’s Department of Human Services, assured lawmakers that changes to a core social safety-net program -- cash welfare assistance -- aren’t producing the kind of wide-scale woe critics predicted.

"There hasn't been an uptick in the food banks; there hasn't been an uptick in the homeless shelters," Corrigan told the state’s House Appropriations subcommittee on human services, the Detroit Free Press reported Thursday. "It's a dog that didn't bite, as far as we're concerned."

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Just two days out from the all-critical Michigan primary, Mitt Romney headed to Florida Sunday to make a pre-race appearance at the Daytona 500. But for Romney, the trip wasn't just an obligatory pilgrimage to woo the conservative fans who booed Michele Obama and Jill Biden at another event last year. More importantly, Romney was trying to send a double message back to voters in his home state that he's just "a guy from Detroit" who "loves cars." Unfortunately, by declaring "I have some friends who are NASCAR team owners," would-be common man Mitt once again crashed and burned.

Romney's latest misstep came just two days after his "Ford Field Fumble" during which he revealed he owns American four cars to go along with his three houses. (While he is aware that "Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs," in 2007 his wife acknowledged "Mitt doesn't even know the answer to that" when asked how many dressage horses she owns.) Sunday in Daytona, he took his message of "Everyman Mitt from Michigan" and turned it upside-down:

Asked if taking time to appear at Daytona was an indication of his level of confidence going into Tuesday's primary in Michigan, Romney said it wasn't.

"No, it's a sign of a guy who loves cars," Romney said. "And this has always been a place where American cars have shined. And a long history from Daytona being connected with Detroit, with Detroit cars, and with the spirit of America."

Romney was at Daytona last year and said he also has been to the track in New Hampshire. Does he follow the sport?

"Not as closely as some of the most ardent fans," he said. "But I have some friends who are NASCAR team owners."

While perhaps reminding some voters of Romney's two-day career as a hunter during his first White House run ("I've been a hunter pretty much all my life" 48 hours later became "I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will"), most Americans will simply recall that Mitt will always be on the side of management.

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Members of the United Auto Workers expressed extreme displeasure with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's comment that rather than bail out the auto industry, "we should have let Detroit go bankrupt." They said that Romney doesn't understand that the bailout didn't just save companies and jobs, it saved careers and families. They went further to say that when conservatives like Romney attack unions, what they are really attacking are working people.

The full press release:

UAW members reacted strongly to Mitt Romney's claim that "we should have let Detroit go bankrupt," when the economy and the auto industry were about to collapse.

"He's trying to rewrite history and attack President Obama and the UAW for successfully saving the auto industry," said UAW President Bob King. "He is misleading voters about the president's bold and decisive rescue of the auto industry and about sacrifices made by workers. But voters deserve the truth."

Even prior to the emergency rescue loans, UAW members made deep sacrifices beginning in 2005 to save the company, giving up pay increases, overtime pay, holidays, agreeing to a reduced pay and benefit structure for new hires, and other concessions. President Obama demanded additional concessions and shared sacrifice from both labor and management in exchange for the loans.

In return, America's carmakers retooled to create the energy-efficient cars of the future and repaid their outstanding loans years ahead of schedule.

Rescuing the auto industry saved more than 1.4 million jobs up and down the supply chain.

"There's not a person in Michigan who doesn't have a sister or brother or cousin or friend who is tied to the auto industry," said Stacie Steward, a UAW Local 1700 member and an electrician from Chrysler's Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) in Sterling Heights, Mich. "Every Michigan citizen should be appalled by what Mitt Romney said."
"It's an attack on American workers," said Jeff Klayo, also of Local 1700 and from SHAP, which was scheduled to close before Chrysler received the loans. "We're out there trying to get the American dream. We're trying to keep our jobs, for a good wage for our family, put food on our table, pay our taxes, continue to work for the company and get the rewards.

"If the company's successful, we can be successful. If the company takes a downturn, we take a downturn with it," he added.

"The president's rescue loans helped the auto industry survive the darkest hour of its history and return to thriving operations today," said King. "These workers from SHAP are evidence. They, along with hundreds of thousands other workers who depend on the auto industry for jobs, were facing a very uncertain future, but today, they are making the Chrysler 200, one of Detroit's new, hot-selling models. UAW members completed negotiations with the domestic automakers this fall with a strategy to make the company successful and to share in its success. And that strategy paid off."

"Americans deserve to know the truth," King added. "The emergency loans worked. GM is once again the world's top carmaker. Its 2011 profit was its largest ever. The auto industry added more than 200,000 jobs in the last two-and-a-half years, and 2011 was the strongest year of industry job growth since 1994. Demand for their cars is going up, so GM, Ford and Chrysler are starting to run three production shifts a day at many plants. Added shifts and new facilities mean jobs for thousands more workers in Michigan, Ohio and other places across the country."

Romney seems to care more about appeasing his allies in the business community than helping out actual working Americans. Good to see that working Americans are fighting back against the lies that Romney and other conservatives are spreading about them.

Mitt Romney thought we should let Detroit go bankrupt. Smooth move, Ex-Lax.

If Mitt had his way, Detroit wouldn't be repped by badasses like Eminem and Clint Eastwood. It'd just be some dude, chillin on the couch, dreaming what might have been.

But gosh, Mitt sure did feel strongly about that whole "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" thing. Huh. Now that GM is the number one auto company in the world again and TARP funds have been repaid, do you think we'll hear anything about that call between now and November?

Michigan's electoral votes will be bitterly contested twixt now and then. It's important to remember the fate that would have fallen Detroit--and Dearborn, and Livonia, and Hamtramck, and all the other areas that rely on that industry--had Mitt been at the helm.

On a personal note, yes those are zits on my face, yes I am too old to be getting them. It's a hectic time dude, get off my back.

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Credit: Vanity Fair

President Barack Obama took an oath to "promote the general Welfare." Venture capitalist Mitt Romney pledged to maximize shareholder value. Unfortunately, candidate Mitt Romney is pretending the two are the same thing. As Romney repeatedly insisted this month, President Obama's rescue of the U.S. auto industry and over one million jobs associated with it is little different than his own Bain Capital days of slashing jobs - and extracting profits.

Romney introduced the new defense of his "vulture capital" past during the December 15 GOP debate in Sioux City, Iowa. There, he took Obama to task for layoffs at General Motors as part of the successful auto bailout Romney opposed:

"In the real world, some things don't make it, and I believe I've learned from my successes and my failures. The President, I'll look at and say: 'Mr. President, how did you do when you were running General Motors as the president, took it over? Gee, you closed down factories. You closed down dealerships. And he'll say: 'Well, I did that to save the business.' Same thing with us, Mr. President. We did our very best to make those businesses succeed. I'm pleased that they did, and I've learned the lessons of how the economy works. This president doesn't know how the economy works. I believe to create jobs, it helps to have created jobs."

Days later, the son of American Motors magnate George Romney repeated the talking point:

"The president has had one experience overseeing an enterprise -- a couple of enterprises, General Motors and Chrysler," Romney told Fox News in an interview that aired Sunday. "What did he do? He closed factories. He laid off people. He didn't do it personally, but his people did. Why did he do that? Because he wanted to save the enterprise, and he wants to make it profitable so it can survive."

No. In 2009, President Obama was trying to save an entire industry, one at the very heart of American manufacturing. In so doing, Obama likely helped save the United States from a second Great Depression.

As McClatchy reported this week:

U.S. and foreign automakers are poised to add nearly 167,000 U.S. jobs by the end of 2015, according to the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. That breaks down to 30,000 hourly and salaried workers at the Big Three U.S. automakers, 17,000 jobs at foreign automakers and about 120,000 auto-supply sector jobs...

Most analysts say the industry's growing stability is sweet vindication for the federal government's $80 billion bailout, which allowed General Motors and Chrysler to reorganize. The Center for Automotive Research estimates that the bailouts saved more than 1.1 million jobs in 2009 and another 314,000 in 2010, while avoiding personal income losses of more than $96 billion.

(The November 2010 CAR analysis is available here.)

And over time, the federal tax revenue from that personal and business income will more than offset any potential losses the government might sustain from its future sales of GM stock. As USA Today noted in June in admitting the success of the Obama administration's bailout of Detroit:

That loss is nothing to sneeze at. It's a heck of a lot better, though, than the $108 billion to $156 billion the government would have lost over three years if it hadn't intervened, according to the Center for Automotive Research, a Detroit-based think tank. Those losses would have come in the form of lower tax receipts and higher spending for pension guarantees, jobless pay and other benefits.

As for Mitt Romney, who famously insisted in November 2008 that Washington should "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," USA Today rightly pointed out, "On what planet would the automakers have found private lenders willing to provide tens of billions of dollars in needed bankruptcy financing at the height of a financial panic?"

In a nutshell, President Obama's tough actions, including painful layoffs and pay cuts for auto workers, saved American jobs, American taxpayer revenue and perhaps the American economy. But for Mitt Romney and his Bain colleagues, the benefits often went into their pockets alone.

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It's awfully tough to be a presidential candidate worth $250 million when income inequality and poverty are at record levels. Of course, it's tougher still when you're Mitt Romney. After all, in words and in deeds, Romney for years has consistently reminded Americans of "the guy who laid you off."

Now, a week after the Republican frontrunner proposed deep spending cuts for lower income Americans to offset his $6.6 trillion tax cut windfall for the richest individuals and corporations, here are just some of the ways you know Mitt Romney is out of touch.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when the $250,000,000 son of an auto magnate jokes with jobless voters, "I'm also unemployed."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he declares himself part of the "80 to 90 percent us" who are middle class.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he won't release his tax returns during any of his runs for office.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he declares "I love a flat tax" after calling it a "tax cut for fat cats."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when decides he will not seek donations to repay $45 million in personal loans he made to his failed presidential bid -- "the biggest ever made by a candidate in a primary campaign."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he responds "I'm not concerned about the voters" after Tim Russert asked him "why not tell the voters of Florida and across the country how much of your own wealth you're spending?"

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his wife Ann jokes that "Mitt doesn't even know the answer to that" when asked how many dressage horses she owns.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when the estimated 14 percent tax rate he paid the IRS is lower than Warren Buffett's.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his tax cut proposal supposedly focused on "the people in the middle" could save his own family tens of millions of dollars.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his tax cut proposal supposedly focused on "the people in the middle" delivers two-thirds of its benefits to millionaires - including Mitt Romney.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he lies about federal employees making more than their private sector counterparts and then complains about "our servants who are making a lot more money than we are."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he apparently forgets which state he lives in, votes in and pays taxes in - twice.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he sells two of his four multimillion dollars mansions because he and his wife are, according to an aide, "downsizing and simplifying."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his advice to struggling American homeowners is "don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom, allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up and let it turn around and come back up."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he says Democrats are "the party of the monarchists."

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Credit: New York Times

Among the more comical episodes of the 2008 presidential campaign was the failed effort by Republicans to paint Barack Obama as "elitist" and "out of touch." Sadly for the GOP, that attack backfired hilariously when John McCain couldn't remember how many homes he owned, said a $5 million income made someone rich, and advocated tax cuts that would save he and his heiress wife hundreds of thousands annually.

Now three years later, Mitt Romney appears poised to fall into the same gold-plated trap. After decrying President Obama for referring to the sluggish economic recovery as a "bump in the road," GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney joked with jobless Floridians that "I'm also unemployed." Of course, one feeble attempt at humor doesn't make Mitt out of touch; that takes a lifetime of experience.

Here are just some of the ways you know Mitt Romney is out of touch:

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when the $250,000,000 son of an auto magnate jokes about being unemployed.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he stages a photo-op with an unemployed single mom in Michigan - who also happens to be the mother of a paid campaign staffer.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he won't release his tax returns during any of his runs for office.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when decides he will not seek donations to repay $45 million in personal loans he made to his failed presidential bid -- "the biggest ever made by a candidate in a primary campaign."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he responds "I'm not concerned about the voters" after Tim Russert asked him "why not tell the voters of Florida and across the country how much of your own wealth you're spending?"

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his wife Ann jokes that "Mitt doesn't even know the answer to that" when asked how many dressage horses she owns.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he sells two of his four multimillion dollars mansions because he and his wife are, according to an aide, "downsizing and simplifying."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he apparently forgets which state he lives in, votes in and pays taxes in - twice.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he says Democrats are "the party of the monarchists."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he claims his five sons serve their nation by "helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he avoided combat duty in the rice fields of Vietnam by getting multiple deferments to perform his Mormon mission in the vineyards of France.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he was raised in upscale Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, claims he's just "a guy from Detroit" and then authors an op-ed piece titled, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when calls for state pension funds to divest their holdings in companies doing business in Iran, only to learn that his former employer is doing just that.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he calls for a crackdown on illegal immigration, only to reply "aw geez" when informed undocumented workers have been landscaping his home.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he starts uncomfortably chanting "who let the dogs out" during what looks like his only interaction with African Americans on the campaign trail.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he still chants "who let the dogs out" after the world learns he strapped the family dog to the roof of his car.

You know Mitt is out of touch when his own adviser Michael Murphy informs Massachusetts voters in 2005 that Romney's "been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he said of Osama Bin Laden in 2007, "It's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he panders to the NRA by proudly declaring "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life," only to clarify two days later "I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when explained that while he placed Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's work among his favorite novels, "I'm not in favor of his religion by any means. But he wrote a book called 'Battlefield Earth' that was a very fun science-fiction book."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when says "My life experience convinced me that Ronald Reagan was right" and giving himself a 10 out of 10 on the conservative scale a decade after proclaiming during his 1994 Senate run, "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he runs an ad in Spanish which concludes "soy Mitt Romney y apruebo este mensaje" (I'm Mitt Romney and I approved this message) after demanding that "English needs to be the language that is spoken in America. We cannot be a bilingual nation like Canada."

(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)