Axelrod on Romney: “I still think he’s a weak frontrunner”

Top Obama adviser David Axelrod is still no fan of Mitt Romney. The senior strategist admitted that he’s counting on Romney becoming the president’s opponent in the 2012 election, though one wouldn’t be tempted to call that a compliment given Axelrod’s assessment of him during a Sunday morning TV appearance.

“I’ve always thought that Governor Romney was a weak frontrunner. I still think he’s a weak frontrunner,” Axelrod said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, but “he’s overpowered Gingrich in Florida with a … spending advantage and a very negative campaign.”

“He’s been so mercurial in his position,” Axelrod said of Romney’s perceived flip-flopping, “He has his own version of state’s rights. He thinks he has the right to change his position in every state he campaigns in.”

It wouldn’t exactly be a Romney attack if dollar signs weren’t thrown in there somewhere. Regarding Romney’s gray-at-best business resume, Axelrod said that the candidate:

“has a great track record of creating wealth for himself and his partners” at Bain Capital, “he’s done it by closing 1,000 plants and stores and offices around the country, he’s done it by outsourcing jobs … byloading companies down with debt and then putting ’em into bankruptcy — on which he and his partners made hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Axelrod went on to contrast Romney in-depth against his own bread an butter, President Obama, with a quick little run-down on economic theory:

“The rules allow you to have Swiss bank accounts, the rules allow you to put your money in the Cayman Islands and to set up businesses in Bermuda and so on. The rules allow all of that. […] The question is, are the rules right? He [Romney] would continue those rules. They are not right. It’s not right that someone like Governor Romney can make $20, $22 million and pay an effective tax rate lower than the average middle class person in this country.”

Axelrod is never one to mince words. He’s a bulldog. Like him or not, he does his job. Do you think he’s right about Mitt Romney?