Really?!?

I'm not sure I can stress how terrifying this piece is:

But it wasn't until the polls closed that concern turned into alarm. They expected North Carolina to be called early. It wasn't. They expected Pennsylvania to be up in the air all night; it went early for the President.

After Ohio went for Mr. Obama, it was over, but senior advisers say no one could process it.

"We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory," said one senior adviser. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming."

They just couldn't believe they had been so wrong...

...But then came Colorado for the president and Florida also was looking tougher than anyone had imagined...

...Romney was stoic as he talked to the president, an aide said, but his wife Ann cried. Running mate Paul Ryan seemed genuinely shocked, the adviser said. Ryan's wife Janna also was shaken and cried softly.

"There's nothing worse than when you think you're going to win, and you don't," said another adviser. "It was like a sucker punch."

Their emotion was visible on their faces when they walked on stage after Romney finished his remarks, which Romney had hastily composed, knowing he had to say something.

Both wives looked stricken, and Ryan himself seemed grim. They all were thrust on that stage without understanding what had just happened.

"He was shellshocked," one adviser said of Romney.

They had no reason whatsoever to be surprised by this, even if they were confident in victory.  To be shocked by the defeat they must have been living in the reality impaired world of Fox News.  While I expect that of a sizable fraction of those who vote for Republicans, I had always just assumed that the party higher-ups were aware that that was a warped, fact deprived world.  That Romney and numbers man Ryan would be so sure of victory that this left them shell shocked indicates a frightening separation from reality for those at the top of the GOP.