"I Used to Care But Times Have Changed"*

*Bob Dylan

The best story of the day was Ben Smith in Politico writing about the Obama campaign's plans for going after Willard Milton Romney. Quoting an anonymous Democratic strategist, the piece says that the Obama people will go after Romney's record on job creation and portray him as "weird". Almost immediately the Romney camp responded claiming "Obama has attacked Romney's character".

Of course, no such thing happened but what's great is how touchy Romney is and how quick off the trigger he is to take offense. McCain tried unsuccessfully to make Obama lose his cool during the whole 2008 campaign but never could. It looks like Obama will have no trouble getting Romney's goat.

Romney has already suggeted Obama doesn't believe in either the Constitution or America, doesn't have American values and other slightly offensive things. A great line was said by a Republican strategist today after the Politico story,"Anyone who attacks a man's character for political gain is beyond the pale." Like the Swiftboaters. But there is genius in the Obama's camp's notion that Romney is just plain weird. In Mark Halperin's campaign book End Game, he portrays how all the Republican candidates in 2008 looked down on Romney and made snide remarks about him in the men's room.

Already the Washington Post is suggesting that Obama shouldn't go after Romney's religion, even if obliquely. I mean there is nothing weird about a religion that teaches that Noah's Ark was built in North Carolina or the Garden of Eden is in Missouri. Or you can't get to heaven without Joseph Smith's permission. I'm inclined to agree with Bill Maher that Romney won't make it to the nomination if the Christian Right wakes up and discovers Jesus doesn't it make that far up the Mormon Totem Pole.

But Romney is odd. He apparently keeps getting large donations from companies with no employees. First we had W Spann LLC, which contributed $1 million cash to a PAC created to elect Romney. Once the press went to town, we found out that the mystery donor is Edward Conuard , a former Bain executive. Then we have two new corporations--El Publications and F8LLC out of Utah, both of which don't have any employees either. All this led the Washington Post to write an editorial to urge Romney to publish all his big donors like he did last election. Finally they had to follow up with an editorial lamenting Romney simply ignoring the issue of the mystery donors even though it is illegal, even in this day of Citizens United.

Romney has always struck me as a bit off. He came blazing out of the box, saying his campaign would raise $25 million by this point and knock everyone else out. He did no such thing and looked clumsy when it came out that he had very few donors and that the large ones had already maxed out. Obviously Wall Street isn't leaping behind him despite his role in creating the hedge fund Bain Capital. And the Bush money network hasn't warmed up to him either. There is a weird vibe here. I think the Obama campaign is on to something that will bear fruit.

John Chambers and David Beers of Standard & Poors are really popular these days. Paul Ryan claims they endorsed his budget proposal, which they most emphatically did not. McGraw-Hill, which owns Sandards and Poors, felt compelled to issue a disclaimer about their entity and said that they had nothing to do with them. The Senate has been leaking e-mails of officers calling their own company "chickensh*t" and other epithets. And if the downgrade didn't get any stranger, these two gentlemen felt compelled to tell us today that the Balanced Budget Amendment wasn't a good idea because it would tie the hands of government. While I agree, it all seemed a bit gratuitous. As if having a temper tatrum,S&P decided to downgrade 11,000 muncipals bonds, making it harder for cities to borrow.

If yesterday's Gallup poll indicated we are in for another wave election, then the CNN poll today didn't give much solace to the GOP. Republicans have dipped to a 33% approval rating and a 59% disapproval rating, the worse polling since Clinton's impeachment. Democrats modestly improved to a 47-47 rating. In the world of doublespeak the RNC chair said that the GOP's poor showing was because of the country's disapproval of Barack Obama, who has dipped but still outpaces the GOp by 10 points. Of course, none of this makes any sense.

But Mitt Romney is weird now that you come to think of it.