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The Spectacle Blog
Is Barack Obama pulling away from Mitt Romney? Two polls that came out yesterday suggest the answer could be yes. According to CNN, Obama has improved from a narrow 49 percent to 46 percent lead in July to a more convincing 52 percent to 45 percent. A Fox News poll has Obama lead 49 percent to 40 percent.
You don’t have to take these polls entirely at face value — there have been complaints about party ID sampling — to notice a trend: Obama’s gains seem almost entirely driven by voters taking a more negative view of Romney. At first it looked like Obama had thrown his best punch without any effect. The numbers seem to be shifiting amidst the barrage of ads.
Team Obama is spending money early to define Romney negatively before the American people develop an independent sense of who he is or begin to sympathize with Romney’s business record in a bad economy. Romney is continuing to raise money and mostly holding his fire, betting that his own ads will have a greater impact in the fall when everyone is paying attention.
Matthew Continetti reminds us that George W. Bush decided to go negative early and the last Massachusetts liberal to run for president made the same bet Romney did. We all remember how that turned out. Obama’s ad campaign is especially aimed at decreasing turnout by working-class whites, who would otherwise be poised to vote against him by a landslide margin.
The big difference between now and 2004: Obama’s numbers are worse than Bush’s and the objective conditions of the country are much worse. Bush still had an approval rating hovering around 50 percent and was at 53 percent approval among those who turned out on election day. Romney still has a lot to work with. But he’ll have to define himself positively as well as point out that the current administration has failed.
View all comments (9) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/08/10/defining-mitt-romney-down
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Scott| 8.10.12 @ 12:46PM
When making comparisons to 2004, it's worth noting that despite Kerry's passive strategy, he still came uncomfortably close in November, and that was with social conservatives riled up as well.
That said, Romney needs to start spending some of that money, plain and simple.
JimH| 8.10.12 @ 1:19PM
I think the election laws limit what he can spend until after the convention. Until then he is just playing rope-a-dope and trying to get BO to blow his wad early.
Paul McGrath| 8.10.12 @ 2:17PM
True, but there's nothing to prevent him from chiming in on the events of the day, such as the recent Chick-Fil-A controversy.
This issue was set up for any Republican nominee to hit out of the park, but Romney chose instead not to step up to the plate. He can not be too timid. It will be his undoing.
Jake| 8.10.12 @ 2:42PM
We already have a president who has to make himself part of every story from Trayvon Martin to the career of LeBron James.
It demeans the office.
Romney should stick to the issues of state .
CFA was a huge success and we all know how Romney
feels about the issue , just as we know how
Obama feels about it.
If the CFA position was something Obama supported, he would have rushed to his local branch for a photo op of him chowing down on a sandwich.
And he would have looked look like a jerk.
As others have noted , there are restrictions on Romney's advertising until he is the official nominee.
But, the ads that have run and
his web ads have been very good.
He's already thrown Obama for a loop with his gutting welfare ad.
Prester John| 8.10.12 @ 3:19PM
I don't know about what's going on in the rest of the country but here outside of DC gas has gone up about 30 cents a gallon in the last two weeks.
Let's see what the polls look like after a few weeks of near $4.00/gallon gas with Romney talking about drilling domestically and BHO talking about Chevy Volts.
JD| 8.10.12 @ 3:29PM
Romney should be turning Obama's hate on its head.
Why did Soptic's steel mill close? It clearly wasn't viable anymore. Let's link the closure to anti-business policies from the Democrats and start blaming Obama for his wife's death!
C. Vernon Crisler | 8.10.12 @ 4:04PM
You expect a moderate to suddenly become Ronald Reagan? Boy were you conservatives fooled during the primaries.
Crassus| 8.10.12 @ 5:42PM
Mittenz is beginning to remind me more and more of Walter M0ndale. Nice enough fellow but he doesn't have the fire in his belly.
Jack in Wi| 8.10.12 @ 11:04PM
Crassus that could be said of old man Bush in 1992, Dole in 1996 and McCain in 2008. Why do we get these old creeps that don't know the reason that they want to be elected?