"Nice guy in over his head" ain't gonna cut it in this home stretch

Stanley Kurtz has an unsettling post at NRO's The Corner to the effect that righties may be underestimating the impact of the FHer convention, or even whistling past the graveyard.

A couple of key money lines:

It is completely accurate to say that the Democrats are pushing a bogus reformulation of the American way of life — slapping a bunch of flags on their Julia ad and turning classic conceptions of civic and religious community into covers for a cradle-to-grave welfare state. Unfortunately, this way of thinking is becoming the new normal in this country, and Obama and his convention have only helped to cement the change.
 

In other words, given the combination of the deliberate economic stagnation  and the decades-long cultural rot that still has not been seriously addressed in America, lots of people are perfectly okay with a country in which we "belong to government."

So we know what we need to do, correct?  Not so fast.  Maybe you and I do, but Mitt seems to still be exhibiting symptoms of Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome:

I can’t say for certain that Romney’s strategy is wrong. But I do think it’s far riskier than we realize. Treating Obama as a nice guy in over his head, rather than a smart leftist who knows exactly what he’s doing, leaves the Democrats’ bogus narrative about government unanswered. America is changing, and Republicans are naive to rely on the public to simply recognize the problems in the Democrats’ claims without significant help from our nominee.

 

 This is why the guy was not among my first four choices.  The main source of hope is that, every so often, the Most Equal Comrade lets loose with something so blatant - "You didn't build that" comes to mind - that Mitt rises to the occasion and really wages war.  Beyond hoping for such moments, us footsoldiers will have to do what is necessary.