Operation “Kill Romney”

Mitt Romney’s camp is up in arms today about a Politico report that team Obama plans to “kill Romney” with a barrage of personal attacks that make him out to be a weirdo who flunks the have-a-beer-with-him test. (“Disgraceful,” Romney’s campaign manager told Fox News this morning.) Never mind that the metaphor quoted above is exceedingly ill-advised for the post-Giffords era. And never mind the Obama campaign’s (mild)protest that Politico isn’t privy to its real strategy.

The story raises a few important points about the current 2012 campaign dynamic. One is that Mitt Romney is the hands-down consensus Republican front-runner. The Obama camp would prefer to run against any number of other challengers, most especially Michele Bachmann, and probably even Rick Perry. But the President’s men aren’t even trying to pretend that Romney’s not currently the likeliest nominee.

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