"Loser!" -- Senior Romney staff.

"Loser!" -- Senior Romney staff.

But what’s more telling are a series of quotes from Romney campaign officials. Again, there are the normal caveats about the private polling showing their man holding onto a tight lead. But then we get this: “At a rally this morning in New Hampshire, I asked a senior Mitt Romney campaign adviser what the campaign had planned in the final crucial days. His answer was swift. 'Praying'.” And this: “One adviser this morning was even more candid: "I'm not saying (Mr. Obama) is definitely going to lose." And finally this: "We're the challengers. We always knew we could lose," one aide told me here in Dubuque. "They [the Obama camp] never contemplated they could lose."

The first hints of honesty peeking through the Romney campaign:They've spent the last few weeks trying to create real momentum by pretending they had some, even though they didn't

Now, all those Republicans who so certainly proclaimed a looming Romney landslide need to preserve some modicum of credibility. Maybe they'll keep spinning nonsense about Sandy turning the tide, or maybe they'll cut that out and zero in on Mitt Romney's inadequacies as a candidate. They were legion, after all.

What's delicious is that this loser talk is happening days before the election. They're beat, they know it, and after weeks of pretending otherwise, they're too exhausted to keep up the pretenses.



Not a good Romney polling day.