No, Obama's reelection strategy isn't based on a smear campaign against Romney that hinges, in part, on calling him "weird." Mediaite pointed us to a retort from the president's adviser, David Axelrod, who made that clear on Morning Joe today. He dismissed the Politico report that made the smear claim as "garbage" and said that he would fire anyone on his staff who would call Romney weird. Axelrod said: "No one on my team believes that. And anyone who purports to be a source within the Obama camp who used that term and some of the other terms that were in that story...should be ripped out of whoever's Rolodex considers them sources, because that doesn't reflect our thinking." Whether Axelrod is backpedaling or setting the record straight, it's worth noting that most pundits were puzzled by the strategy: calling Romney "weird" seemed like code for taking a veiled swipe at Romney's Mormon faith.

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Erik Hayden