Team Obama has shown themselves to be very good at baiting Romney into gaffes, like the latest "changing Washington D.C. from the outside" gotcha that they pulled by producing a video of Romney basically stating the same thing.
How is that baiting? There is no telling what dumb things Romney will say next, or how he will take an Obama statement out of context and deceive Americans with it. The Romney campaign intentionally ignored the next phrase where Obama clearly said Washington can be changed, but only from the outside. This is one of MANY intentional misrepresentations of Obama's statements, just so they have another slogan to run with.
His idiocy is getting so bad that I have to sometimes wonder if he is still a Liberal working undercover to secure a second term for Obama. I mean his problems go well beyond gaffes. He's outright insulted half the country as lazy freeloaders. He's lied about some pretty easily verifiable claims, which means he plays us all for lazy idiots he expects never to fact check his assertions. From his lying about "you didn't build that," statement, to his fubarred misrepresentation of the Libyan tragedy, lying about Obama apologizing for American values, to his outright lie about Obama taking money from Social Security benefits, to his refusal to reveal his tax returns because he feels he's above reproach, to his lying about raising taxes on the middle class, etc. This man is a walking cluster “F”, so it is little wonder Right Wing pundits and politicians are beginning to distance themselves from him. He is an utter embarrassment. This guy has no moral compass. He's the quintessential Mormon who thinks facts can be made up as he goes along.
He is never going to improve in the polls unless he can reach out to the middle, but virtually everything he says is designed to give the extreme Right Wingers a hard on. If he really so stupid that he doesn't understand this? It doesn't matter how excited you get the Tea Party freaks, they are already voting for you. What he has to do is do something to attract those in the middle. Attacking the poor, calling Obama voters lazy freeloaders, making business owners afraid of Obama, railing against entitlements, most of which Obama has no control over, etc. is all playing to his base, which is fringe by every definition. They won't be able to carry him, which is why Republican governors are desperately trying to enforce meaningless voting laws that are designed to hinder the Democrat vote. That's the only way they'll be able to pull this thing off, by silencing the majority.