Sympathy for the Doofus

That's the title of a new Paul Krugman blog post.  His point: Yes, Romney is a weak candidate but the GOPers now slamming him are ignoring that the real issue is their party.  Or as I might put it: The fault likes not in their star but in themselves.  "What, after all, does Romney have to run on? True, he hasn’t offered specifics on his economic policies — but that’s because he can’t. The party base demands tax cuts, but also demands that he pose as a deficit hawk; he can’t do both in any coherent fashion without savaging Medicare and Social Security, yet he’s actually trying to run on the claim that Obama is the threat to Medicare. On fiscal matters, doubletalk and obfuscation are his only options."

In his Monday column, Krugman explores Romney's claim, in the video, that the economy will perk up just from his election, without having to do anything at all.

In fairness to Mr. Romney, his assertion that electing him would spontaneously spark an economic boom is consistent with his party’s current economic dogma. Republican leaders have long insisted that the main thing holding the economy back is the “uncertainty” created by President Obama’s statements — roughly speaking, that businesspeople aren’t investing because Mr. Obama has hurt their feelings. If you believe that, it makes sense to argue that changing presidents would, all by itself, cause an economic revival.

There is, however, no evidence supporting this dogma.