I go to this kind of fundraiser several times a year...

I've had lunch with the Vice President in a setting like this.

And what struck me first was this: at EVERY one of these events, the candidate is accompanied by one or more young aides who's job is to scribble down notes: who the candidate met, what issues came up in discussion, and WHAT THE CANDIDATE SAID, in case it comes up again.

In the case of the Romney video, apparently nobody was taking notes when this inflammatory comment was made, or his campaign team is so clueless that they didn't think that dissing half the voting population was a potential issue. If they had, they might have been prepared with a better response than last night's disastrous press conference.