Mitt Romney, True Believer

It's still amateur night, a youth-encampment campaign of non-pols clueless to the in-fighting and elbowing of a presidential race.

Where are the experienced hands and hardened pros? Even loopy Michele Bachmann for a time had Ed Rollins on board to make her look plausible until nuttiness won out.

But Mitt Romney seems impervious to help. As his 47 percent stumble goes on and on, nobody steps in to limit the damage. The rescue plan consists only of more unvarnished Mitt. Lots of luck with that.

Yet, what his epic lapse reveals is less Romney’s disdain for the underprivileged than what Eisenhower’s favorite philosopher Eric Hoffer called the intense insularity of the True Believer.

"Passionate hatred," he wrote, "can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance."

In imparting his philosophy to other country club True Believers, Romney is on his own mission, oblivious to the 47 percent and more who struggle in lives not cushioned by wealth and privilege in a world where survival, not tax avoidance, is a daily concern.

Americans might take the Bain capitalist more seriously if he showed some understanding of Hoffer’s observation: “There is no greater threat to sanity than the taking of one’s life too seriously. No one will miss us long when we are gone. No one will lose his appetite because we are no more.”

But expecting Mitt Romney to embrace a tragic sense of life may be just too much, like expecting his acolytes to understand why their presidential ship is sinking.