Doubling Down as the Party of Racism

Earlier today a clearly disgusted Josh Marshall posted this at TPM:

"No question. The Romney campaign has doubled down. All in on the race/lazy/dependency groove from here on out. No going back.
 
In private they’re all but bragging about it — specifically their run of welfare-centric commercials which they’re running at a red hot clip in swing states all across the country. It’s working, they say. The fact-checkers can go screw themselves. "

In a later post he added that the Romney campaign could still drop this line of attack but must do so soon because "for all intents and purposes the political press has placed the Romney campaign at a crossroads."  Which seems to mean that they won't get away with doing it covertly, they'll continue to get sharp questions, and the media will continue to point out the lies and racist appeal.  That of course may not mean anything to the GOPers at this desperate point.  For as one of their own said recently, the demographic trends being what they are, this is probably the last national election where something like this might work.

What that might look like--and why the Romney campaign is likely to ignore it--is implied in these quotes assembled by Andrew Sullivan's blog.  Kevin Drum is the latest journalist to note that, when it comes to being called on a lie,  "The Romney campaign just doesn't seem to care. If it works, they use it. It's like the campaign is being run by cyborgs."

Jonathan Chiat says this isn't entirely new: it was the way that the Bush administration governed: without any regard to the truth, to verifiable fact, to anything but conservative and neocon dogma.  Will voters notice this, and remember what it got us?

Meanwhile, there is concerted effort to suppress the story--by the GOP and apparently even CNN--of the  confirmed incident of someone at the Tampa convention--now reported as involving two people--who threw nuts at a female African American camera operator and cried, "This is how we feed animals" inside the convention hall.  The two people were said to be expelled immediately, but TPM reporters are getting stonewalled on details.