Mitt's rescue plan is more campaign appearances over fundraising?

In my posting Romney campaign imploding, I noted a Real Clear Politics story, stating that the Romney campaign will be concentrating on fundraising over that of campaign rallies.  Now a Politico story has come out, contradicting that first claim:

After taking a beating for comments he privately wishes he never made and from conservative critics he wishes he could muzzle, Mitt Romney and his campaign are settling on a rescue plan to show more of him — in ads, speeches and campaign appearances. A big focus, according to campaign officials, will be on Romney talking a lot more about how his ideas will help regular Americans who remain deeply suspicious of him.

The aim: Switch the emphasis from Washington policies to personal pocketbooks. Look for a heavy emphasis on jobs and specific ways to cut government spending.

“He has to own his message for people, especially women, to buy the messenger,” one top adviser said.

A campaign official said: “In a lot of the current survey data, there’s a desire among the electorate to know more about Mitt in terms of how he would lead. Over the next six weeks, the campaign is going to provide a lot more of that.”

Aides also expect more joint appearances by Romney and running mate Paul Ryan – most likely in the swing states of Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The plan, described by top aides and advisers in interviews this week, is an acknowledgment that Romney is in enough of a hole that he cannot depend on the presidential debates to turn his candidacy around. In fact, Romney, who recently did five mock debates in a 48-hour period to practice, has confided to advisers that it may be hard to win a debate because every attack against President Barack Obama will seem stale while the attacks on him will seem fresher and newsier to a hostile media.

Instead, Romney plans to dial back on fundraisers and vastly increase his personal appearances — on the stump and in ads — to convince what’s left of the undecided voters that Obama has been a disappointment and that he has a specific plan that is less risky than the status quo.

 It is almost like the hole that Mitt Romney has dug for himself has got half the campaign staff digging the hole deeper, and the other half of the staff filling the hole in with the freshly dug dirt. One Republican adviser said, "We are going to look back at this as the week he got his act together, or the beginning of the end."  The campaign is trying to calm nerves among top donors.  At a fundraising breakfast in New York, Friday, a will-Mitt-win poll was taken at one table of 10 men, where each paid at least $2,500, and some raised up to $50,000 for the campaign.  None of the 10 men said yes. 

Mitt Romney's got a perception problem--people think he is not going to win. The Libyan controversy and the unplugged video has pretty much sealed that perception problem.  Look at top Republican leaders who have criticized Romney on his 47 percent comment--Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, Mo. Senator Roy Blunt, William Kristol, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (who excused himself and did not take any questions from reporters), and even conservative columnist Peggy Noonan, who called the Romney campaign "an incompetent one."  Do any of these conservatives actually believe what Mitt Romney said in the video?  It does not matter--they at least know you do not say such a thing in public, for the American people to see.  The campaign is scrambling to reassure conservatives, but the conservatives are not buying it.  “We will, if you get your act together,” is the response.  The problem, as Politico points out, is that those same conservative pundits, politicians, and donors, have latched on to Mitt Romney as "a vessel for their ambitions to defeat Obama...."  They had an overwhelming desire to make President Obama a one-term president that they supported a stuffy, arrogant, wooden stick, who had no charisma, to run as their own.  Mitt Romney is not a man of the people--he could not even play-act a "man of the people's" candidate as a means to fulfill his political ambitions.  Now with the entire campaign crashing down on itself, is there even enough time, or even a campaign strategy, to reboot Mitt Romney before the election?