Via Steve M, a fascinating analysis by Noah Millman at The American Conservative.

I have only become more convinced that what has changed the dynamics of this election has been a fundamental reevaluation not merely – or even primarily – of the two candidates, but of the two parties. This election is becoming nationalized, and it is becoming nationalized in the context of an across-the-board swing in the direction of the Democrats.

The reason, I think, is a simple one. The Republicans Party – not just the Romney campaign, but the party as a whole – is running on nothing. They are running on the presumption that the country has already rejected the Democrats, and that therefore it is their turn. They are behaving as if choosing Democratic governance was some kind of “experiment” that didn’t work out, and now the American people will, of course, come back to their natural home.

By contrast, the Democrats actually made a case for their party. They explained what their party has done, and why they should be able to set the national agenda. They defended their foreign policy, their economic policy, and their social policy in strong, unapologetic terms.

Millman points out that the polls haven’t just been moving in favor of Obama; in the swing states they’ve been moving in favor of Democrats in down ticket races as well. There’s still time for that to change before the election, of course, but I think that’s exactly what’s happening in the election campaigns right now.

Jonathan Bernstein wrote,

… GOP obsession with “vetting” Barack Obama, and with a variety of ill-fated attack lines, comes from two things: the divergence of incentives between the Romney campaign and what my brother calls the “movement conservative marketplace”; and, the closed information loop that makes it difficult for insiders to have any sense of how outsiders would see these attack lines.

Bernstein suggests the mighty media infrastructure may have turned into a liability for righties, because it’s too easy to gin up some phony controversy that explodes on Fox News and Politico and Buzzfeed, and which gets the rightie bloggers all fired up, but which is simply meaningless to the general electorate. The recent outrage that there’s a several-year-old video of Barack Obama using the word “redistribution” is an example. That was supposed to counter Romney’s “47 percent” remark? On what planet?

A lot of the current generation of Republican politicians suffer from ideological inbreeding, IMO. They have absolutely no idea what anyone outside the echo chamber thinks. And the only political skill many of these clowns possess is being a loyal echo. A lot of them don’t seem to understand what government is for, and I doubt they could write sensible policy legislation if you let them copy it off a blackboard.

Charles Pierce writes the speech Mittens should be giving now.

Randy Newman, still brilliant —

David Corn has the next installment of the Mittens Videos. See Jonathan Chait for commentary.

This morning the Republican Party, and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, found itself in a very deep hole. And it appears they’re going to keep digging for a while. I say this because the Right doesn’t seem to grasp why what Mitt said on the “parasite” video is so outrageous.

For example, Daniel Foster writes at NRO:

I don’t think there is any way to spin the release of this video as a positive for Romney, but I do think — and I said as much on Twitter — that now that it has happened, Romney’s only play is to turn into the approaching torpedoes at flank speed, Marko Ramius style.

In other words, the more fully Romney owns these comments the less the press can report them as a “gaffe.” Romney is now in a position that he has to bring the fight to Obama on the entitlement state. He can’t coast on poor economic indicators. Which, I think, is to the good, since the polls are showing that that is not a guaranteed winner, anyway.

So Mr. Foster worries that the press will report Romney’s parasite rant as a “gaffe”? He thinks that’s the worst that can happen?

A “gaffe” is meeting with Ed Miliband and calling him “Mr. Leader.” In the video, we hear Romney going on and on about nearly half of the citizens of the United States being parasites who are beneath his concern. And he was speaking clearly, articulately, and with great conviction. That was no “gaffe.”

So often when speaking in public Mitt adopts the expression and tone of a nervous man trying to placate a snarling dog, whereas in the video he sounds both relaxed and passionate. One suspects this is a speech Mittens has made many times before, to close friends and family, and that he believes every word.

(BTW, Foster suggested that Romney explain his remarks this way —

I said they probably wouldn’t vote for me. I never said I didn’t want to help them. I never said I wouldn’t do everything I could as president to make sure that 1 in 7 of them are not on foodstamps, to get jobs for the 8 percent who can’t find them and the countless more who’ve given up.

However, the thrust of Romney’s economic argument these days is that government cannot get people jobs; that government is supposed to get out of the way so that “freedom” can grow the economy. Perhaps this theory needs more work.)

See the abbreviated pundit round-up at Daily Kos for a nice sampling of the reaction to Mitt’s hitting the fan. Even Mark Halperin and David Brooks are disgusted.

But I want to go on to a couple of other points. First, please do read “The Federal Bailout That Saved Mitt Romney” by Tim Dickinson, if you haven’t already. This happened in 1995 —

The FDIC agreed to accept nearly $5 million in cash to retire $15 million in Bain’s debt – an immediate government bailout of $10 million. All told, the FDIC estimated it would recoup just $14 million of the $30 million that Romney’s firm owed the government.

Read the article for the details. I’m saying that if a low-income disabled veteran receiving VA benefits is a “parasite” in Mitt’s book, then by comparison Mittens must be a world-devouring monster. Especially if you add the money Mitt drained out of the federal government to run his Olympics — which helped Mitt professionally if not financially — I bet Mitt has benefited from more federal “hand out” dollars in his life than all the citizens in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, combined. Easily.

Second, if the Right really wants to wade into the “entitlement” argument, I say let ’em. Let them be clear that they see Social Security and Medicare recipients as “parasites.” Let them be clear that the child born with birth defects benefiting from SCHIP, the disabled veteran in the VA hospital, the 6 million elderly whose nursing home bills are paid by Medicaid, are “parasites.”

C’mon, righties, that’s how you think. Come out and say it. Have the courage of your convictions. The fact is, a big chunk of the people who vote for Republicans are parasites in the eyes of Republican politicians, and it’s high time they realized that’s what you think they are, wouldn’t you say?

Update: Michael Walsh at NRO, “Mitt’s Gettysburg Moment.” Unreal.