Both candidates are campaigning on the economy. Romney is devoting much of his efforts to distorting Obama’s views, taking a statement on the private sector out of context. Obama has responded with the above ad. The key portion comes at the end: “Mitt Romney and his billionaire allies can spend millions to distort the president’s words but they’re not interested in rebuilding the middle class. President Obama is.”
While current polls have limited predictive value as to where the voters will be in November, I do find it significant that despite what the pundits called a bad couple of weeks for Obama, Obama maintains a small leads in the national polls and a significant lead in the electoral college. There are a number of possible explanations. Possibly enough voters do realize that the economic problems are due to George Bush’s economic problems and are not anxious to return to those policies under Mitt Romney. The stories about Romney’s years at Bain very well could be making voters question Romney’s character and interest in helping the middle class.
A new Associated Press-GfK poll raises the possibility that, although virtually everyone says the election is about the economy, voters might not actually be choosing candidates based upon the economy as they do not believe it matters. Half the voters do not think that either candidate can do anything about the economy. This could be pessimism about the policies of either candidate, along with recognizing the limitations of the president. I do suspect we will start hearing a lot more from Obama about policies he has proposed which would have helped the economy and increased employment but were blocked by Republicans in Congress.
After Thursday, it is also possible that both health care and the composition of the Supreme Court might compete with economy as a campaign issue.
