Campaign aides who call Mitt Romney “weird” will be kicked off President Obama’s re-election team, according to senior adviser David Axelrod.
The term appeared numerous times in a Politico article quoting a number of named and unnamed Democratic strategists on how they planned to attack Romney in a general election.
Appearing on MSNBC on Friday, Axelrod challenged the report’s assertion that the aides quoted were connected to the campaign. “No one on my team believes that,” he said, calling the article “garbage.”
Asked whether he would fire an aide who used the term, he replied “I would. If someone used words like ‘weird,’ I would certainly do that.”
Despite his protestations, Axelrod was quoted in the Politico article offering up some of the Romney campaign trail stories that were cited as evidence of how playing up Mitt’s “weirdness” factor might work in a national race. He never used the word himself, however.
“When he makes jokes about being unemployed or a waitress pinching him on the butt, it does snap your head back, and you say, ‘What’s he talking about?’” he said in the piece.
Benjy Sarlin
Benjy Sarlin is a reporter for Talking Points Memo and co-writes the campaign blog, TPM2012. He previously reported for The Daily Beast/Newsweek as their Washington Correspondent and covered local politics for the New York Sun.
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