This is what you call "lousy advance work."

The Hill:

His speech was held at Detroit's massive Ford Field, which holds tens of thousands of people, but only 1,000 or so attended. The campaign and the Detroit Economic Club, which hosted the event, sought to make the stadium look more full by putting the audience in one end zone of the football field and putting the cameras directly behind them.

But cameras showed empty chairs, and the Democratic National Committee blasted out photos that compared the crowd at Romney's speech to the filled stadiums where then-candidate Barack Obama had campaign rallies in 2008.

The reason only 1,000 people showed up is because of lines like this:

Television cameras showed rows of empty chairs as Romney rehashed many of the policies and quips he'd used in previous speeches, made a few jokes that appeared to fall flat with the audience and said that his wife, Ann, drives "a couple of Cadillacs," which will likely give Democrats more ammunition for their depiction of him as rich and out of touch.

The former Massachusetts governor also repeated a line that has been the butt of jokes by late-night comedians -- that Michigan has good-sized trees.

"This feels good, being back in Michigan," he said. "The trees are the right height. The streets are just right."

Romney then listed the various cars he and his wife own.

"I drive a Mustang and Chevy pickup truck," he said. "Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually. I used to have a Dodge truck, so I used to have all three [Detroit manufacturers] covered."

Can it get more embarrassing -- or depressing?