My daughter tells me that this is the hottest thing trending on the social networks right now. Which is not good news for Romney concerning the youth vote.

Apparently it all started with this article over at Slate on October 23rd:

Sometimes one gets a little tired of the echo-chamber of election anxiety, the fretful watching of the debates, the scrolling through tweets and Facebook postings to see what everyone else is thinking watching the debates, the brilliant little analyses by friends, the bits of cleverness, the instant polls. So it was sort of relaxing and informative to watch the foreign policy debate with my 9-year-old Violet, who is at that phase of life when she views the world entirely through the lens of Harry Potter. 

It started in the last debate when she said of Mitt Romney, after hearing him talk for a few minutes: “He’s Umbridge!” And of course I saw exactly what she meant, the brittle, lacquered, self-satisfied smile of the ambitious Dark Arts professor and passionate ministry bureaucrat, Dolores Umbridge. The saccharine, almost-girlish chuckle. The proclamations she issues at Hogwarts, the self-important talk about “the ministry this” and “the ministry that.” The classes doomed to read out loud instead of learning the spells they desperately need. The moment where she makes Harry write lines into his own skin with a pen that draws real blood, all the while smiling that fake and brittle smile. Then of course there is her interest in Muggle Registration, and protecting “pureblood” wizards from the dilution and compromise of human blood.

And from there it went viral.

My daughter informs me that these images and humorous comments connecting Romney and Umbridge have been flying fast and furious around the inter-tubes.

And you know, now that I think about it, there IS a rather frightening similarity. Don't you think?