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“This is deadly earnest. How they can justify … raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years? How in the Lord’s name can they justify raising their taxes and these tax cuts?” he asked.

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WASHINGTON — On the eve of the first presidential debate, the early autumn Republican reviews are in for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, and they are not pretty.

In some states, candidates who share the Nov. 6 ballot with the former Massachusetts governor already have taken steps to establish independence from him. Party strategists predict more will follow, perhaps as soon as next week, unless Romney can dispel fears that he is headed for defeat despite the weak economy that works against President Barack Obama’s prospects.

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who headed the Republican Party when it won control of Congress in the 1990s, said disapprovingly over the weekend that Romney’s campaign has been focusing on polling, political process and campaign management. “It’s about everything but the issues. It’s about everything but Obama’s policies and the failures of those policies,” he said.

A prominent party strategist, Matthew Dowd, says the Romney campaign was almost guilty of political malpractice over the summer and during the two political conventions. It “left the playing field totally to Barack Obama and the Obama campaign” and “‘basically set the tone for the final 60 days of this campaign, which put them behind after the conventions,” Dowd said. He and Barbour both spoke on ABC.