Quote of the Day: Romney Being Outplayed at His Own Game

From Mitt Romney, in a rare appearance before actual reporters who got to ask him questions:

It’s very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments. We’ve seen throughout the campaign if you’re willing to say really outrageous things that are accusative, attacking of President Obama, that you’re going to jump up in the polls. I’m not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am.

Say what? I mean, Romney is basically right here, but he’s talking about himself. His strategy from the first day has been to deflect questions about his conservative bona fides by quickly pivoting to the wildest, most over-the-top applause-line condemnations of President Obama imaginable. And it’s a smart strategy: until recently it’s allowed him to show the Republican base that he’s one of them (“I hate Obama as much as you do!”) without tacking so far right that he ruins his chances in the general election.

Of course, Romney has since seen that strategy fizzle. His whole apology tour schtick, his claims that Obama wants to turn America into China, his claims that America is on the edge of a socialist precipice — well, that was pretty good stuff in its day, but Rick Santorum has upped the ante. Obama has declared war on religion! Obama wants you to go to college in order to indoctrinate you! He supports prenatal testing because he wants to rid America of the disabled! Suddenly, if you want to prove that you really hate Obama, the stakes have gone up. Romney has been outplayed at his own game, and he’s not happy about it.

UPDATE: Greg Sargent tells me to get my demagoguery straight: “Romney says Obama wants to turn America into Europe, not China.” I guess that’s right. Maybe I was thinking of something Newt Gingrich said? Or perhaps Romney’s claim in the Sioux City debate: “This is a president who fundamentally believes that the next century is the post-American century. Perhaps it will be the Chinese century. He is wrong.” Or maybe his WSJ op-ed claim: “President Obama came into office as a near supplicant to Beijing.” I dunno. It really is hard to keep track.

By the way, Greg has a pretty good rundown of Romney’s Big Lie strategy here. It’s a couple months old, so there’s a lot of more recent stuff missing, but it still gives you a pretty good sense of Romney’s rhetorical method.