I’m hoping Mitt Romney can get his act together in this debate because as a conservative pundit, or rather, playing a conserve pundit…it’s so difficult for me right now to get behind Mitt Romney. It’s incredibly frustrating as a performer who has to model behavior that is so schizophrenic and bifurcated because it’s almost an unprecedented candidacy – as far as I can tell. No one seems to like him – even the people who are behind him. There isn’t a sort of monolithic point of view to base my own satire on.

Basically, the satire of my character in relation to Mitt Romney now is night to night, I can change my mind and I can be hopeful or in despair from night to night because I have no point of reference for what’s happening now. Even McCain in 2008 post-Lehman Brothers might have seemed like a bit of a winged duck, but people still liked him. People were still behind him.

You get a feeling that everybody of the sort that I’m modeling really has one foot out of the boat right now and I really I hope Mitt – I mean listen I have my own political views, but as a performer I hope he does something positive tonight so that there’s something for me to rally behind because that’s what my character wants to do… He wants to have a champion that he can champion and that just doesn’t exist in Mitt Romney right now. He’s just a walking wound.

— Stephen Colbert on how his character wants Mitt Romney to do well in the presidential debate in Denver

They’ve come to the conclusion that [his campaign] needs to find a way to talk about what his faith means to him without talking about the individual tenets. And what’d they like to do — and I know what they’re talking about doing — is talk about how as a church leader, he helped people who were disadvantaged, that this was the way this very, very wealthy man heading a private equity company in Boston was able to meet with people who might have been poor or disadvantage in various ways as a church leader.

— Michael Kranish on the role of Rommey’s faith in the campaign

When he looked at the race, he saw Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, and John McCain, the senator from Arizona – they were the big boys in the center, if you will, in the Republican Party. There was no room for Mitt Romney there. Where there was room was on the right.

— Scott Helman on Romney’s move to the right during the 2008 Republican primary

Whatever you think of Mitt Romney, whatever you think of his tenure at Bain, whatever you think of Bain Capital or private equity, I think we have to stipulate that Mitt Romney certainly has some economic fluency. He has trafficked in this world for years and I think there is certainly some truth to his statement that he knows how jobs come and he knows how jobs go. So I think he is largely correct to say that he has some significant understanding of how the American economy works, but I think it’s a different question entirely, when we’re saying, do we want this kind of man to be our leader? Do we want somebody who is very successful making money for very wealthy people running the economy that’s supposed to be for everybody? And I think that’s where his pitch is a little less persuasive.

— Scott Helman On Romney’s Experience at Bain Capital

This was his major achievement in Massachusetts as governor. … Now he goes to great lengths to say that he hates Obamacare and President Obama is wrong and it should be repealed. The fact is, there are a lot of similarities in the bills. The Obama plan was modeled in many ways after the Massachusetts plan. It will be interesting to see how [Romney] continues to talk about it.

— Reporter Scott Helman on the health care bill Romney signed as governor of Massachusetts that requires individuals to purchase insurance [complete interview here]

On Thursday’s Fresh Air, Boston Globe reporters Scott Helman and Michael Kranish join Terry Gross for a wide-ranging conversation about Mitt  Romney, who they portray as a deeply analytical man guided strongly by his Mormon faith.

Tomorrow: Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman talk about Mitt Romney’s politics, life and career.

(by Mitt Romney)