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EDITOR’S NOTE: TotT is a daily rundown of significant campaign events, compiled by Katie Rooney. If you have ideas or suggestions on how to make “Today on the Trail” better, please let us know in the comments section.
Former Sen. John Edwards
Otherwise, it’s a light day for the campaigns. Here’s where other presidential candidates will be today:
* Sen. John McCain
* After spending the weekend campaigning in “The Sunshine State,” Sen. Barack Obama
-Katie Rooney
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.
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.
