The death of 'you didn't build that'

They didn't stick with it. Remember when Republicans took something President Barack Obama said and spliced the shit out of it so it had him say "you didn't build that" to entrepreneurs?  

Oh, Republicans thought they had a keeper! Rush Limbaugh was typically unhinged:

I'll tell you what. I think it can now be said, without equivocation -- without equivocation -- that this man hates this country.

John Podhoretz claimed the comments would be a political disaster for Obama:

This statement is a colossal opportunity for Mitt Romney and will prove a suppurating wound for the president, who revealed a degree not only of condescension but of contempt for the very people who are going to decide this election.

And if there's one thing people recognize, it's when they are being viewed with contempt.

Ha ha, ironic I know, in the wake of the 47 percent video...

John Sununu, one of those rare Mitt Romney surrogates (there's like three), tsk tsk'd the atrocity:

I wish this president would learn how to be an American.

Charles Krauthammer saw electoral gold:

If Republicans want to win, Obama's you-didn't-build-that confession of faith needs to be hung around his neck until Election Day.

Karl Rove spent millions running ads with the comments, same as Romney, who also made it a key theme in his stump speech. Other Republicans like Scott Brown piled on.

Republicans made it the theme for an entire day at their national convention, and mentioned it in every speech on all three days. It was their magic anti-Obama bullet!

And then ... nothing. The line of attack has been completely dropped.

Perhaps it had something to do with this:

NBC/WSJ polled 'you didn't build that' line: 36% said it made them feel more positive/32% more negative. Romney's 47% comment got 23% to 45%
' @samsteinhp via TweetDeck Perhaps it had something to do with this, in which Obama's national led held steady except for that convention blip:
Perhaps it had something to do with this, in which I compare current battleground state polling with that back in June 2012 when this nonsense began:

Obviously, their supposedly brilliant line of attack didn't work. It failed. Mission not accomplished. When Romney loses ground in every single battleground state they claim to be contesting, it's a pretty ugly picture. (And as an aside, this is now the first time Obama has led the polling composite in North Carolina since ... March.)

So after spending so much time and energy and money on the "you didn't build that" attacks, they've had to toss them aside and cast about for something new. That's why they've been rebooting Romney on a daily basis, and why he's spent so much time stashed away memorizing zingers for today's debate.

Yup, they built that debacle, and I wouldn't be too proud about it if I were them.

8:16 AM PT: I wrote a few weeks ago about why the "we built that" nonsense failed:

Looking at Romney's solutions for the entrepreneurs he fetishizes, nothing addresses the problems most of them face. He wants to roll back what gains we've made on health care, his tax cut plan doesn't help the vast majority of small business owners, the "government regulation" canard is just that'canard.

Thus, every time Romney talks about entrepreneurs, he basically tells the other 90+percent of the country that he's focused on someone else. And even that relatively small pool of entrepreneurs isn't hearing anything that would make them think, "Hey, this guy will help my efforts." Putting my partisan hat aside and putting on my capitalist one'there's not a single said Romney has said that would make it easier for me to keep growing my businesses.