It’s bad enough when other elected members of your party go out of their way to criticize you and distance themselves from you, as many GOP lawmakers have done to President Bush recently in the still-unfolding US Attorneys scandal. They, after all, have to worry about their House and Senate seats. But your problems are of a higher order when the chief political strategist of your re-election campaign decides to disavow you and your leadership on the front page of the New York Times, as Matthew Dowd did on Sunday. What’s striking about Dowd’s explanation is the sense of responsibility that permeates it. He doesn’t just think Bush has made mistakes; he’s speaking out as an act of atonement — or, as he puts it, “to restore balance when things didn’t turn out they way they should have.”
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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.
