The cruelest season

What is it about summers and Massachusetts when it comes to presidential candidates?

Michael Dukakis retreated to a working state business hiatus in western Massachusetts in August 1988 and lost his post-convention bounce on his way to losing to George H.W. Bush, who steered clear of his cigarette boat -- if not Boston Harbor.

Sixteen years later, John Kerry opted to go windsurfing off Nantucket and give George W. Bush a perfect photo to go with his campaign ads.

Now, Mitt Romney is tooling around Winnipesaukee on a jet ski built for two, while conservatives use him for fuel in a camp fire of scorn over his "it's a penalty, it's a tax" flip-flop.

Is it any wonder Barack Obama is getting anywhere near Martha's Vineyard this summer?

While it is true that the majority of Americans are tuned out of the presidential campaign at this point, the ever-cautious Romney needs to be concerned that he is being used as the rope in the never-ending tug of war between the hard right and the majority of Americans.

Sniping by Rupert Murdoch and William Kristol has to be unnerving at some level to the otherwise sang froid Romney and his team. Between them, Murdoch and Kristol represent publications that can make Romney's political life more complicated as they continue to try and nudge Mr. Etch a Sketch away from the center that he's been inching toward.

But that even takes second place to the self-inflicted damage Myth Romney has created by his inartful gyrations over the Supreme Court's ruling on the health care mandate and the Arizona immigration law.

The DVRs at Obama's Chicago headquarters have no doubt been working overtime to record Romney's multiple choice answers -- and his aides stonewalling -- for use in campaign spots later this year.

The same holds true for those taking down headlines from stories about Romney's less-than-clearly timed departure from Bain Capital; his off-shoring of jobs; not to mention his own cash.

The time has almost arrived for the Romney clan to leave tax-free New Hampshire and head back out on to the trail. The Obama camp is probably even more sorry that the Romneys to see that break end.