Four years later, Mitt Romney’s unsteady campaign performance has yet to convince voters that he is a “Marshall-type figure” who can, in his own distinct way, fill the office of the presidency. Only recently has Romney begun to detail the policies he would pursue if elected, as if they were hatched from a few late-night strategy sessions after a string of bad news days rather than from the candidate’s core philosophy. The fact that Romney is in charge of his own widely criticized campaign doesn’t appear to be especially reassuring to the electorate — and even so, his campaign tactics reveal only what he would do in order to win, not what he’ll do once he has won.

We cannot trust anything he says other than that he'll figure it out.

Now he's just some Romney that I used to know.

"“It was an unrelentingly bleak discussion, with the financial guys talking about the world as we know it ending,” recalls Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was McCain’s senior economic adviser at the time. Another McCain senior staff member, who, like many people I spoke with, would speak only under the condition of anonymity, told me: “At the time, there wasn’t a person on the political team who understood what a credit-default swap was or toxic mortgages or subprime bundling. At one point I asked, ‘What do you mean by economic collapse?’ And one of them answered, ‘It means you won’t be able to get a 20-dollar bill out of an A.T.M.’ Right after the meeting I called my wife and said, ‘Get $30,000 in cash out of the bank today.’ It was terrifying and surreal.”"

Fiat system lol. Buy non-perishable food and potable water not just cash from the bank. These guys are hilarious.

"I didn’t. Obama’s desk still looked nearly vacant. Emanuel whirled to the other wall and directed my attention to a much earlier photo, featuring himself and another familiar face, seated behind the same desk, which in this shot was ornamented by a riot of Victorian clutter. “Clinton,” he grinned. “Look at the desk. Now mind you, he’s got everything arranged. Books are stacked, folders are over here, the coins soldiers gave him here, the pens — he loved pens — here. Incredibly creative mind.” And then pointing back to Obama’s spartan desk: “Incredibly disciplined mind. Both incredible presidents. But their desks, in my view, say something.”

I like this.