Picking up on Neiwert's post -- right-wingers are deeply confused about why they're about to lose yet another national election, and that includes Laura Ingraham.

INGRAHAM: And I've said this time and again. If you can't beat Barack Obama with this record, then shut down the party. Shut it down. Start new, with new people. Because this is a 'gimme' election, or at least it should be. And the millions of dollars, I keep going back to the millions and millions and millions of dollars that are paid to these political consultants. Election after election, we hire people who've lost previous campaigns. Who've run campaigns that have failed. Who have messaged campaigns where the message fell flat and they keep getting rehired. I don't understand that.

Like Jeb Bush, who thinks the Republicans' problem is "tone," Ingraham is convinced that if only Republicans had the right candidate saying the right words, they'd be running away with the election.

This is basically crazy.

First of all, this analysis ignores that the last Republican administration was a catastrophic disaster and the last Republican president left office one of the least popular presidents in modern times. One can only speculate why Ingraham is completely oblivious to the massive damage George W. Bush and Dick Cheney inflicted on the Republican brand, but it's real.

And although Mitt Romney isn't a particularly talented retail politician, the reason he's not winning right now is that because on key issues that voters care most about, people prefer the president.



Romney trails Obama on the handling of all important topline issues in the poll. On health care, Obama wallops Romney, 53 percent to 36 percent. On the economy and jobs, Obama leads 46-44. On taxes, it's Obama, 49-38. Obama also has leads of at least 9 points in both issues of national security and foreign policy.

Romney is delivering the message Laura Ingraham wants to hear on health care: repeal Obamacare. He's delivering the message she wants to hear on the economy and jobs: cut taxes and deregulate businesses. And he's delivering the message she demands on taxes: lower them even more for the wealthy, and everyone will benefit.

If these policy prescriptions were novel and popular, Romney would be winning. The problem is, nobody else except Republican partisans believe in them, especially after they failed so spectacularly under Bush/Cheney.