There's an excellent chance Mitt Romney will be the 2012 GOP nominee, and the chance that Barack Obama will be re-elected is almost as great.

How will that work? In part, like this: the Obama campaign and their allies will mount a vigorous, oftentimes misleading campaign against Romney. And, aside from trivial matters like gaffes, the Romney campaign and their supporters won't be able to do that much about it. As a result, undecideds and weak Obama supporters will swing more towards Obama than towards Romney. Added with the GOP's other liabilities (like promoting fringe, bordering-on-Ayn-Rand economic policies and suppressed Teaparty turnout due to Romney not being a True Conservative), Obama stands a very good chance of being reelected.

As part of their effort, the Obama campaign and groups like Media Matters for America or the Center for American Progress will take a Romney position and twist it hither and yon. That will then get picked up and endlessly amplified by the establishment media. The Romney campaign will fight back to some extent in some cases and major rightwing bloggers and some in the Tea Parties movement will help out to some extent in some cases. However, it won't be enough: the Obama campaign and their helpers will simply be smarter, more aggressive, and saner (see the last link). And, that will keep happening over and over and over until Obama gets reelected.

For a case in point, last month the Obama campaign posted "Mitt Romney is the GOP’s most extreme candidate on immigration" at their official site keepinggophonest.com [1]. Can anyone find anyone else taking the incredibly easy (for me [2]) step of showing how it's wrong? It's really, really, embarrassingly wrong, but I would imagine that the vast majority of undecideds or weak Obama supporters won't know enough about immigration to know how they're being misled.

It would serve Romney's interests greatly to show how keepinggophonest.com is wrong now: he could show voters that he could take Obama on in the general election [3] and he could get more support and wrap things up. Yet, his campaign doesn't seem capable [4] of doing that, and Romney/GOP supporters like major rightwing bloggers or Teapartiers aren't willing or able [5].

Now, multiply the above times a thousand, spread over several months. You'll get item after item like [1], with little effective pushback. If Romney can't even engender effective pushback against things like [1], how would he deal with Iran or China? If things stay as they've been, another Obama win might be for the best.

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[1] keepinggophonest.com/
mitt-romney-is-the-gops-most-extreme-candidate-on-immigration

Full text follows; the video it references is below:

In yesterday’s GOP debate on CNN, Mitt Romney declared that the country should look to Arizona as a model for its policies on immigration. In praise of Arizona’s radical anti-immigrant law SB 1070, Romney said:

"I think you see a model here in Arizona [for immigration enforcement]."

Romney’s latest declaration only adds to his comprehensive list of radical anti-immigrant policies, reinforcing his position as the most radical on immigration in the GOP field. Here are just a few of the positions that help Romney outflank Republican competitors:

* In adopting Arizona’s radically anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, as a national model, Romney is promoting the idea that all immigrants should have to carry their “alien registration” documents at all times and that the law should require police to question anyone they suspect of being in the United States illegally, with or without proper cause. Arizona’s law also gives the police the power to detain anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally if that person cannot immediately provide the appropriate documentation.
* Calling it a “mistake” to allow undocumented immigrants who have abided by the law and put down roots in society to stay in the country, Romney offered instead a “self-deportation” policy. Making it more difficult for immigrants to obtain employment, the theory goes, “enough of them will leave” for their native countries. As the New York Times wrote, “his scheme for fixing immigration is mass expulsion: a fantasy of ridding the country of 11 million unauthorized immigrants by making their lives unbearable.” In fact, states like Arizona that already promote a “self-deportation” policy have offered “deplorable” results and even “caused a civil-rights emergency.”
* Romney also promised, if elected, to veto the DREAM Act—a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for upstanding, undocumented students who have chosen to serve in the military or pursue higher education. Despite the fact that the bill encourages military recruitment and helps reduce the deficit, Romney remains obstinately opposed to its passage.

The extremity of Romney’s immigration position earned him the endorsement of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an extremely anti-immigrant Republican whose entire job creation idea boiled down to “deport an illegal alien today.” In endorsing Romney, he said, “We need a president who will finally put a stop to a problem that has plagued our country for a generation.” He added later, “all of the other candidates stand to the left of Romney on immigration.”

The Democratic National Committee has released this video cataloging Romney’s extreme immigration policies. Watch it, and share it with your friends:

[2] I could easily show how the immigration posts at keepinggophonest.com are misleading, but I won't (unless I'm paid).

Why should I? Even if I did something like this (or this or this or this or all the other entries on Obama immigration) about their post, I wouldn't get links from major rightwing bloggers or Tea Parties adherents on Twitter.

[3] A radio ad from the pro-Newt Gingrich PAC "Winning Our Future" makes that point: that Gingrich stands a much better chance of being able to intellectually challenge Obama and come out ahead. Based on Gingrich's performances in the debates and based on the actions of the Romney campaign, I think that's accurate.

[4] Take a look at the Twitter feeds for Romney's representatives (@ggitcho, @EricFehrn, @andreamsaul, @zacmoffatt, @rick_gorka). Does anyone think they're capable of showing undecideds how the Obama campaign is trying to mislead them? The phrase "aggressive intellectual engagement" does not exactly leap out at me when reading their feeds.

[5] In the case of Teapartier types, it frequently goes one Pauline Kael level deeper: it's not necessary to show anyone how Obama misleads because no one they know thinks Obama ever tells the truth.