As Charles told you this morning, Mitt Romney's momentum argument from before Sandy is basically gone. Now, news that Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorses Obama comes at a critical time.

Endorsements don't generally matter, but coming as this does on the heels of Sandy, the Bloomberg endorsement adds to the glow surrounding President Obama going into the weekend before the election. And all Romney has done to try to change the state of the race is to continue his negative stump speeches. That's not enough.

Here's the thing: Mitt Romney desperately needs to change the narrative. And he can't change the narrative with ads, or with attacks from behind a podium. Just about the only way Mitt Romney can change the narrative is by giving a candid interview to a non-Fox outlet. I think his campaign knows this, but they've also calculated the risk of a Romney personal appearance, and they've decided that it's more likely that Romney would fuck up an interview.

Not counting the debates, Romney hasn't made a personal appearance with the media in over a month. I think it's been even longer for Ryan. If he could just make a single appearance where he looks like a realistic human being, Romney would garner some much-needed positive attention. But he can't do that, because he's terrible at extemporaneous interviews. Unless he's been coached to within an inch of his life, Romney always says something his campaign has to walk back, or he makes a joke that falls flat, or he drops an obvious and unfortunate lie. I almost feel bad for the Romney campaign: The one thing they really need right now, their candidate simply can't deliver. Mittmentum is just a memory now.