Obama Plan: Destroy Romney

I'm borrowing the headline from Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin at Politico.

The Mitt Romney campaign is convinced that the Obama White House has Romney in the crosshairs, and they're out with a new press release, "You're My Obssession":

“With each passing day, it is becoming increasingly clear that President Obama and his Democrat allies are fixated more on Mitt Romney than on turning around our struggling economy. If the past is any guide, we expect this obsession will grow. A Romney Administration will be focused on reviving the economy and adding jobs, not consumed by campaign politics.” – Andrea Saul, Romney spokeswoman.

Well, there's more for the White House to consider. Although Newt Gingrich has now emerged as Romney's key challenger for nomination (given the developing collapse of Herman Cain), Romney leads in the Wall Street Journal's poll out last night, "WSJ/NBC Poll: Cain, Perry Woes Bolster Romney and Gingrich":

A week of turmoil in the race for the Republican presidential nomination has damaged Herman Cain and devastated Texas Gov. Rick Perry, all apparently to the benefit of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, according to new polling numbers from the Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey. (The full results are here.)

The Journal/NBC News polling team late last week went back to re-interview Republican primary voters who had taken the Journal/NBC poll earlier this month. The results of 102 interviews, while not scientifically conclusive, are instructive.

Among those recontacted, 32% now say they favor Mr. Romney for president, up from 27% when they were surveyed between Nov. 2 and Nov. 5. During that earlier canvas, those 102 Republican voters favored former pizza executive Mr. Cain over Mr. Romney in a head-to-head race 51% to 47%. That same group now favors Mr. Romney 56%-43%.

I know a lot of conservatives aren't pleased with Mitt Romney. He's not my first pick, by any means. But as I noted previously, the left's institutional character assassination machine will attempt to rip the GOP nominee to shreds, and that may well be Romney, so the Obama/Occupy/Organizing or America thugs aren't wasting any time.