Walking awkwardness factory Mitt Romney told a great “humorous” anecdote yesterday:

“One of (the) most humorous stories, I think, relates to my father. You may remember my father, George Romney, was president of an automobile company called American Motors,” Romney said… “They had a factory in Michigan, and they had a factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and another one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And as the president of the company he decided to close the factory in Michigan and move all the production to Wisconsin.”

It only gets more hilarious!

Economists keep saying that the economy has been improving, but to many people, it doesn’t really feel like it. Wondering why?

Philip Davis at Seeking Alpha explains why:

Average Increase [in 2010 Income]:

• Top .01%: +21.5%
• The Rest of the Top 1%: +11.6%
• The Bottom 99%: +0.2%

Why are the bottom 99% walking away with an increase of only 0.2%, while the top 1% have seen their incomes surge by a much, much higher amount? Because the bottom 99% of people are getting only 7% of the total increase in income. Remember, for it to be otherwise would be Communism.

Here are the facts:

If more domestic oil drilling worked as politicians say, you’d now be paying about $2 a gallon for gasoline. Instead, you’re paying the highest prices ever for March…

Sometimes prices increase as American drilling ramps up. That’s what has happened in the past three years. Since February 2009, U.S. oil production has increased 15 percent when seasonally adjusted. Prices in those three years went from $2.07 per gallon to $3.58. It was a case of drilling more and paying much more.

U.S. oil production is back to the same level it was in March 2003, when gas cost $2.10 per gallon when adjusted for inflation. But that’s not what prices are now.

That’s because oil is a global commodity and U.S. production has only a tiny influence on supply. Factors far beyond the control of a nation or a president dictate the price of gasoline.

…but facts have a well-known liberal bias.

Mitt Romney’s top adviser Eric Fehrnstrom appeared on CNN and compared the Romney campaign to “an Etch-a-Sketch”. Asked if Romney’s rightward swing in the primaries might hurt him with moderate voters in the general election, Fehrnstrom replied:

Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.

When your candidate is known for being a flip-flopper whose positions change with the wind, that’s a really unfortunate analogy.

GOP voters have been saying “Meh. Romney” for a while now, and a new Gallup poll puts it in numbers. Only 35% of Republicans say they will vote for Romney enthusiastically, the same number who said that at the same point in 2008. Here’s the problem for the GOP: back in 2008, McCain was at 47%.

In other words, in 2008, 47% of Republicans were enthused about the presumed nominee. In 2012, that number is 12 percentage points lower.

As Gallup concludes:

The new data underscore Republicans’ lack of satisfaction with the current candidates, particularly in contrast to Republicans’ higher level of enthusiasm for McCain in the last election… the available data show that Republicans are suffering from a deficit in candidate enthusiasm, and don’t appear to have an active candidate in sight whom they are excited to get behind.

GraphJam explains.

If the primary season has made one thing clear, it’s that no one — on either side of the aisle — is excited about voting for Mitt Romney.

So for your disheartened Republican friends, here’s a poster/flyer they can print out.

No, seriously. She said that.

In an interview Monday on Fox News, the wife of the Republican presidential front-runner, Ann Romney, was asked about criticism that her husband can seem out of touch with average Americans. His worth has been estimated as high as $250 million…

“We can be poor in spirit, and I don’t even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing,” Mrs. Romney said.

“Interesting” is one way to put it.

Media Matters put together this great montage of Fox “News”[sic] anchors explaining how the President doesn’t have the power to lower gas prices, and that the way to insulate ourselves from gas price spikes is to reduce our use of oil.

The clips, of course, are from 2008.

How many can you get right?

Find out.

Stop me before I Photoshop again.