Steve Kornacki thinks Romney is betting on a bad economy:
The weaker it becomes, the more vulnerable Obama will seem to Republicans. This, in turn, will create more urgency for the party's opinion-shaping elites to rally behind a candidate capable of taking advantage of a poor economy in the general election — and it will make it easier for them to persuade rank-and-file Republican voters to follow their lead.
Ryan Lizza sizes up Romney's latest guise:
One of Romney’s former aides recently told me that, whatever Romney’s difficulties explaining his support of the individual mandate in the health-care plan he passed in Massachusetts in 2006, nobody should discount him, because once he gets “locked in” it is “scary” to see how focussed he can become on a goal. Right now, Romney is locked in on the weakness of this economy—and that is a message that should scare Democrats this time.
The Dish 