Posting hecklers to disrupt Axlerod’s press conference. Driving a bus around and honking a horn outside of Presidential speech? Is it just oddball behavior? Probably not according to Josh Marshall. It all seems part of Romney’s plan to appeal to the Gingrich/Santorum fringe of the party that wants a bad ass.
The Romney folks know that pretty much nobody — not the Republican base or really anyone else — is going to be convinced that the candidate is a down-the-line conservative. But he can appeal to them by playing the bad ass card, getting in Obama’s grill, disrespecting him. Not in highly public ways and not the candidate himself — that could be damaging. But in slightly out of the way ways, the sort of stuff that really committed political types do see.