The general election unofficially began nearly a month ago, and so far President Obama is winning.
This has nothing to do with poll numbers. Sure, Obama enjoys a statistically insignificant 3.7 percent edge over presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney in an average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics, and several analyses give the president a bigger advantage when it comes to the Electoral College. But every honest observer knows that polling will only become meaningful in the fall.
It’s been widely agreed that given Obama’s vulnerabilities, Romney’s chances of winning hinge on his ability to make the election a referendum on Obama’s record. And here is where Romney is failing. His campaign is allowing the president to change the subject.
Though the general election won’t begin in earnest until September, after both Romney and Obama have formally accepted their respective parties’ nominations, it effectively began when Rick Santorum suspended his presidential campaign on April 10.
Since that time, three stories have dominated the political news cycle. The first came when Hilary Rosen, a Democratic operative, said Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.” The next came when the Romney campaign promoted a Daily Caller story recounting that Obama had eaten dog as a child in Indonesia. The most recent came as Obama decided to spike the football before the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s killing, releasing an ad suggesting Romney wouldn’t have made the same call.
In all of these cases, the Romney campaign has taken the bait, reacting to whatever Team Obama has decided to make an issue.
The hoopla surrounding Rosen came as a response to the Democrats’ “War on Women” campaign, begun when conservatives opposed the administration’s policy of forcing religious institutions to purchase drugs to which they had moral objections. The Romney campaign is still on the defensive about the gender issue, having releasing a statement on Wednesday blasting Obama’s economic record on working women.
Read more at The Washington Examiner.
