Thursday, September 20, 2012

Should Obama Worry About Romney Video?

Republican candidate Mitt Romney has been on the back foot since the release of the video of his disparaging remarks about "the 47%" who apparently won't vote for him (and I guess he's hardly to be commended for a magnificent sell operation towards them either).  Conservative commentators in America have not been sympathetic, while the President has been able to make some capital from Romney's latest misadventure, commenting on David Letterman's Tonight show that the president "represents all the people", to inevitable wild applause in the studio.

But could the video incident yet come back to bite Obama too?  David Frum, over on the Daily Beast, speculates that should the currently anonymous recorder of the video turn out to be a Democrat activist or worse, campaign employee, Obama might be facing his very own Watergate.  A little extreme perhaps - there is a clear difference between bugging private offices and recording a fund-raising dinner - but it's an interesting speculation nonetheless.

Meanwhile the polls, taken before the video fall-out, seem to suggest that Obama was beginning to lose his convention bounce.  Gallup's swing state poll gave Obama a mere 2% lead over Romney, although some state polls are better - Fox News has Obama 7% ahead in Virginia and Ohio and, significantly 5% ahead in the key battleground state of Floridai.  Real Clear Politics has the polling round-up here

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