September 23, 2012 06:34 PM UTC

Colorado Leads Off Critical Romney Swing-State Comeback Tour

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: A commenter points out an error: Romney had in fact promised to release his 2011 tax returns some months ago, a promise widely reported at the time–though the timing of their release last Friday is still very much a point of debate. We’ve corrected our post below.

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AP via the Boston Herald as GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney arrives today:

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney heads to Colorado on Sunday, the first stop in what advisers call an “intense battleground state schedule” aimed at countering GOP criticism that his campaign is mismanaged and misdirected…

For Romney, an evening rally at a Denver-area high school represents his first public event of the weekend. With the election less than seven weeks away, the Republican candidate is facing pressure to spend less time raising money and more time explaining his plans to voters in swing states.

He plans to do that beginning with the Colorado rally. Romney then launches a three-day bus tour in Ohio on Monday followed by a stop in Virginia – all states Obama won in 2008 and held by Republicans four years earlier.

The schedule shift comes in the last full week before the presidential debates move the campaign into a new phase – one which Romney advisers suggest could prove pivotal following several weeks marked by negative attention, missteps and Republican concerns.

You knew things were getting bad in the Romney camp when he finally released one additional year of tax returns–something he had pointedly refused to do delayed for months under heavy criticism, and despite the fact that one year isn’t nearly what critics have asked for.

After several weeks of what can be fairly described as one of the worst periods for a major-party presidential nominee in recent history, there’s a real pervading sense out there–even among lower-information voters who have begun to hear the anecdotes–that the wheels have irretrievably come off the Romney campaign. To the extent that there is a road back to victory for Romney at this point, it’s going to have to start with a major effort in the swing states in which he remains competitive, like Colorado. The obvious question, is it too little, too late?

Maybe not, but circumstances that could change the trajectory are getting harder to imagine.

Sometimes our nation’s love of gamesmanship forestalls honesty about these things.