As Ana mentioned earlier today, this has been a particularly bad week for an Administration that hasn’t had many good ones in the past couple years. Nine U.S. soldiers died in Iraq yesterday. Hearings on Walter Reed Hospital and the fired U.S. Attorneys have made the administration look both insensitive to wounded veterans and dismissive of the idea that federal prosecutors should be given broad independence from political interference. And then the most powerful aide to the most power vice president in history was convicted on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements. And it’s only Tuesday. I thought I heard a palpable sigh of relief emanating from the White House when the Dow closed up this afternoon. The recent market slide has been threatening the last best GOP talking point — a relatively strong economy.
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Why Romney Is Dodging the Press
Joe, the Romney campaign’s control-freakery makes for bad democracy, but I suspect it’s a smart strategy. Consider the way Mitt’s personal approval rating has bounced back over the past several weeks. As the GOP primaries wrapped up, Romney was roughly as unpopular as late-era George W. Bush. Now he’s about even with Barack Obama.
Since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Romney’s favorable-unfavorable rating has jumped to 50%-41%, his best ever and in the same neighborhood as Obama’s 52%-46% standing.
What changed? Well, for one thing, other Republican rivals are no longer attacking Romney. That helps. But it’s not like he’s had a free ride: the Obama camp has picked up where Rick and Newt left off. An alternate explanation would be that Americans are simply seeing less of Romney, and that makes them like him better.
From our PartnersFor Obama, gay marriage stance born of a long evolutionHuffPost Politics
Crossroads, Super PACs and the Incumbent Advertising Gap
In a recent piece about the Obama-Romney ad wars, Michael Scherer made the smart point that this election is different from past ones in that the incumbent no longer gets a free hit on his rival during the period immediately following the primary. The reason: super PACs have the cash to cover that gap while the challenger collects enough general election funds to keep pace.
