Trouble in Mitt Romney's paradise

Mitt Romney's in a world of conservative hurt. (Reuters) The Wall Street Journal, that last bastion of "respectable" Republican media outlets, has had just about enough of Mitt Romney and his inability to settle on one position. The editorial board opines:

If Mitt Romney loses his run for the White House, a turning point will have been his decision Monday to absolve President Obama of raising taxes on the middle class. He is managing to turn the only possible silver lining in Chief Justice John Roberts's ObamaCare salvage operation'that the mandate to buy insurance or pay a penalty is really a tax'into a second political defeat. [...]

Perhaps Mr. Romney is slowly figuring this out, because in a July 4 interview he stated himself that the penalty now is a "tax" after all. But he offered no elaboration, and so the campaign looks confused in addition to being politically dumb.

They conclude: "Mr. Romney promised Republicans he was the best man to make the case against President Obama, whom they desperately want to defeat. So far Mr. Romney is letting them down." Ouch.

But that's tame compared to the fury of the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, who is severely unhappy with his candidate.

Remember Michael Dukakis (1988) and John Kerry (2004)? It's possible to lose a winnable presidential election to a vulnerable incumbent in the White House (or in the case of 1988, a sitting vice president). So, speaking of losing candidates from Massachusetts: Is it too much to ask Mitt Romney to get off autopilot and actually think about the race he's running?

Dukakis? Kerry? Now that really must sting. When the WSJ and Bill Kristol are sounding like David Axelrod, you know Romney's flip-flopping and his own unforced errors are what's killing him, not the Obama campaign.