Romney, however humbled, has nearly 50 more chances to change the narrative. Romney 2012 RIP? Not so fast

Mitt Romney’s campaign might appear to be collapsing like a cheap card table, but one top Democrat close to President Barack Obama had a curt warning for allies who were declaring the election all but over on Tuesday.

It ain’t over, he said, until Karl Rove sings.


That litmus test of when George W. Bush’s former impresario gives up on the race reflects the unprecedented strength of the powerful money machine supporting the GOP. It also shows why even a wounded Republican standard-bearer could limp to victory in November.

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“I’ll relax when Karl Rove wakes up one morning and realizes that Mitt Romney can’t win the White House, and he needs to throw all his money at other races,” the adviser told POLITICO hours after Mother Jones posted hidden video of Romney describing Obama supporters as a government-dole-addicted 47 percent of the population who will never vote for the Republican.

“Until Rove does that, we are going to get outpaced by two to one, at least, by these super PACs. Add a couple of good debates for Romney, and the fact that he’s doing well in North Carolina, and [Paul] Ryan’s put Wisconsin in play — there’s your tight race.”

Caution is not the message emanating from the Washington echo chamber or from giddy Democrats — and depressed Republicans — who are drafting Romney’s political obituary with nearly 50 news cycles before Election Day.

But Romney, however humbled, has nearly 50 more chances to change the narrative. Despite his stunning missteps, his failure to articulate an attractive rationale for his candidacy, a growing GOP pessimism and tales of corrosive internal dissent, he remains within easy striking distance of Obama in most polls and is showing no signs of imminent collapse.

( Also on POLITICO: Romney woes jangle GOP nerves)

His support isn’t likely to dip much below 45 percent to 47 percent largely because nine in 10 Republicans are backing him.

“President Obama may make major strategic decisions in response to two tough days in the fishbowl — but that’s not how Crossroads rolls,” said Jonathan Collegio, spokesman for the Rove-linked groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. “Every state where Romney needs to win is tight — we know this; our donors know this; and we’re continuing with our plan to end this train wreck of a presidency that has been Obama’s last four years.”

There aren’t a lot of raging optimists in Obama’s inner circle anyway, and now, they are being very careful, in private, to moderate their glee with a realism.

“Democrats should just remember Florida 2000 before they get cocky,” veteran Democratic strategist Karen Finney said. “It’s the stuff you don’t see that goes under the radar — the robocalls … fliers and mailings. … That’s the kind of stuff you can’t detect. Karl Rove knows how to win,” she said.

A Democrat close to the campaign said national and international events could still upend the race.

“Could Mitt still get his s—- together and win? Sure. Could Obama have a couple of really bad economic reports, a couple of bad incidents in the Mideast, could Mitt outperform expectations in the debates? Yeah. … The bottom line is we’ve got to keep everybody focused ’cause no election has ever been won this far out.”

That isn’t to say Democrats aren’t elated by the latest turn of events.

“Everybody always wonders what famous people are like behind closed doors. They wonder about Mitt Romney more than most,” said Democratic strategist Paul Begala, who said the Romney campaign has worked hard to “humanize” the candidate.

“This destroys all that,” Begala said. “He comes across as what he is: an arrogant elitist.”

Focus groups conducted by the Obama campaign and allied groups are showing a growing movement away from Romney among suburban women, the key swing demographic in battleground states, such as Ohio, Florida and Virginia. The words that keep cropping up, according to a Democrat briefed on the results, are “not sympathetic” and “doesn’t care” — a damaging trend for a Republican who needs to win over economically strapped independents.

Women voters are also hostile to Romney’s bellicose foreign policy pronouncements on Iran and the Arab Spring — although his comments continue to strengthen his support among white men.

And that support among white men is one key aspect of the tape that’s been overlooked: A lot of voters, especially white, working-class men, basically agree with Romney’s portrait of a country overrun by tax deadbeats and spongers.

As of Tuesday morning, Obama’s post-convention bump was starting to fade, and RealClearPolitics’s summary of polls had him up, on average, by only 3 points nationally. Its average of state-by-state polls showed growing but still modest Obama leads in the critical battlegrounds — up 3 in Nevada, 4 in Ohio, ahead by barely a point each in Florida and Virginia, although a Washington Post/NBC poll released Tuesday showed Obama with a widening lead of 8 points in Virginia.

Romney holds a 5-point edge in critical North Carolina and is now within the margin of error in most polls of Wisconsin, once a solid-blue state put into play by Romney’s selection of native-son running mate Paul Ryan.

Republicans are hoping that the three presidential debates will be defining moments for the Romney campaign — a chance to seal the election in a big prime-time moment. But some are not counting on it.

“I think Republicans are putting too much hope on the debates,” said Republican consultant John Weaver. “Can we really conceive of Mitt Romney knocking Obama to his knees, and Obama begging for ‘no mas; no mas’?”

A 2008 Gallup polling analysis found that debates in 1984, 1988 and 1996 “had little to no impact on voter preferences during the debate period.” In 1980 and 1992, the debates primarily boosted the third-party candidates running in those races.

History suggests that a comeback by a candidate down in the national polls is rare but not impossible. Veteran consultants point to Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1988 — both of whom started the fall campaign from behind. But the critical time is now: Undecided voters, and there are very few of them, tend to lock down their choices by late September, according to pollsters.

Obama is one of the few comeback kids in recent presidential elections: John McCain actually took a small lead just after his convention in 2008 — before folding in the fall. But the high-speed rush of modern campaigning and an unpredictable economic and foreign policy dynamic make precedent less meaningful.

“You’re never doomed,” said Democratic strategist and 2004 Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi. But “it’s tough enough to become president of the United States, let alone to continually turn the ball over” by losing so many news cycles.

“I don’t think he’s out of it by any means,” Trippi said. “But this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”