This week may mark the begin­ning of the end of Mitt Romney’s cam­paign for Pres­i­dent. If you’ve been around Log­a­rchism a while, you know I’m not typ­i­cally one to get all breath­less at the barest whis­per of trou­ble for a Repub­li­can can­di­date. This looks dif­fer­ent from the typ­i­cal polit­i­cal gaffe, though.

See, here’s the prob­lem. Rom­ney has an exist­ing rep­u­ta­tion for a lack of con­vic­tion, for chang­ing his stance on issues more fre­quently than the weather changes. It’s why the Etch-​​a-​​Sketch state­ment was so dam­ag­ing for him, despite for most can­di­dates being merely a benign state­ment of fact. The expected Repub­li­can Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date has a rapidly build­ing nar­ra­tive that he is hav­ing trou­ble defend­ing. Let’s start with the nar­ra­tive, and then look at pos­si­ble defenses and their respec­tive pit­falls. (more…)