"I used to want Obama to win. Now I want Romney to lose."
British blogger Tom Doran comments on the Romney birther joke:
Barack Obama approaches November with two major obstacles to his re-election. Firstly, the economy, which continues to recover sluggishly. Secondly, the apathy of the Democratic base relative to the Republican base. Therefore, Romney's optimal strategy couldn't be more obvious: keep hitting the economy line as hard as he can, resist any change of subject and avoid saying or doing anything to anger liberals and other key Democratic blocs. Instead, he's nominated a VP candidate who seeks to radically scale back the welfare state, has failed to dissociate himself from the Todd Akin mess (looking weak in the process for failing to force him to drop out) and now, a mocking embrace of the Birthers. He clearly doesn't believe in their conspiratorial creed himself; the joke, rather, was "Ha ha ha, I don't get asked to show papers and you do, loser". Quite apart from being mean, this could almost be calculated to elicit the maximum amount of righteous anger on the left. I know this because I am of the left and I am furious. I used to want Obama to win. Now I want Romney to lose.