Obama vs. Romney: How the Game is Played

Mitt Romney is having a rough go of it lately, the poor dear. Ever since the general election started, President Obama has had Romney against the ropes. Romney had a brief surge as a result of the Hilary Rosen debacle, but he royally screwed that up, and it's been all downhill since then.

From Romney's tone-deaf claim that students should borrow a cool $20,000 from their parents in order to get their fledgling businesses off the ground (nevermind the fact that $20,000 in 1983 is equivalent to approximately $53,000 in 2012), to Romney's hiring and immediate firing of Richard Grenell as his foreign-policy spokesperson in response to the bigoted backlash from social conservatives –- social conservatives like Bryan J. Fischer who excoriated Romney for hiring a gay man and then immediately mocked Romney for bowing to -- in Fischer's own words -- a "yokel" like him, to Romney's attempts to convince us hapless noobs that the Republican Party is "extraordinarily pro-woman" even though Rommey expressly said that he would "get rid of" Planned Parenthood, it is painfully obvious that Romney simply cannot catch a break.

Today, the Mittastrophe reached critical levels.

Yesterday, after President Obama, in a historic moment, came out and affirmed his support for marriage equality, Romney quickly saw an opportunity to win back some of the wingnuts with whom he is desperately trying to curry favor in the hopes that they will forget that he's hella Mormon. So Romney reaffirmed that he really doesn't support gay marriage, you guys because marriage is one dude, one chick and gay people are kinda creepy. (I am paraphrasing.)

So today, what happens? We find out that Mitt Romney was a big old gay-bashing bully when he was in high school. So bad was Romney, in fact, that classmates have claimed that Romney's behavior was "evil" and like "Lord of the Flies."

I KNOW.

Back in the day, Romney and his friends attacked a presumed gay student, pinned him down, and cut his hair while the young boy screamed. Young Romney didn't care, of course, because that dude was a homo with long hair, and Romney didn't like homos -- especially homos with girly hair.

Amazing.

As I'm reading and pondering this, I'm marveling at the political strategery of Davids Axelrod and Plouffe. Think about it:

On Sunday, Vice-President Biden comes out in favor of same sex marriage.

On Wednesday, President Obama comes out in favor of same-sex marriage, leaving some to speculate that he was backed into a corner, or that he should have done it sooner, or later, or whatever it is that people complain about when they simply can't shake the need to be outraged about something, like, all of the time. (asiangrrlMN already covered this, but long story short, Obama's record on LGBT rights is second to none; and he announced his support for the Respect Marriage Actlast year, legislation which would repeal DOMA, so can we all calm down for a minute, please?)

Then today -- Thursday, a front-page article drops in The Washington Post about how Romney was a big ol' gay-hating gay-basher.

Are you kidding me?! It's brilliant!

Back when President Obama was a young man, trying to figure out who he was and writing pensive letters to his girlfriend about T.S. Eliot and other philosophical shit, Romney was picking on and assaulting gay people.

Face? Meet brick.

And here's the kicker -- here's the dark chocolate inside this croissant d'awesome: Romney's behavior most assuredly would have constituted a hate crime under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act which President Obama signed in 2009, if such a law had existed at the time and had Romney been prosecuted under that law. (The Hate Crimes Prevention Act expanded the existing hate crime law to include crimes motivated by gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, and is the first federal law to extend protections to transgendered persons.)

You cannot convince me that this was not planned. At the very least, the Obama campaign knew the article was going to drop and decided to announce sooner rather than later that President Obama supports same-sex marriage (he had already planned to announce it at some point before the convention.)

This is how it's done, folks.

Mr. Romney, sir? I do believe you have been served.