Let's see. The supposed consensus at Real Clear Politics shows Mitt Romney trailing Barack Obama by less than three points. As shown yesterday, one of the most recent five polls used in RCP's calculations from CBS and the New York Times is so cooked that it weighted registered Democrats over registered Republicans by 35%-22% -- so you can easily knock more than a point from Obama's lead for that item alone. Rasmussen has Romney up by two, and Gallup has gone from Obama +6 to Obama +1 in just a week.
So naturally, according to John Whitesides at Reuters, it's Romney's campaign which is "reeling" (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
Romney struggles to steady campaign after secret videos
Republican Mitt Romney struggled on Tuesday to stabilize his reeling presidential campaign after a secretly recorded video showed him belittling President Barack Obama's supporters [1] as victims who are too dependent on government.
The video from a closed-door fundraiser in Florida in May sparked another wave of criticism of Romney's gaffe-plagued campaign [2] and raised fresh questions about his ability to come from behind in the polls [3] and win the White House in November.
In the video, the first part of which was published on Monday by the liberal Mother Jones magazine, Romney tells donors that 47 percent of Americans will back Obama no matter what and "my job is not to worry about those people."
... The video capped a difficult two weeks for Romney [4], who has fallen slightly behind Obama in opinion polls, taken heavy criticism for a hasty attack on the president during assaults on U.S. diplomatic compounds in Egypt and Libya and faced damaging news reports about infighting in his campaign team.
It also reinforced criticism that the millionaire former head of the private equity firm Bain Capital is out of touch with average Americans, a theme the Obama campaign has hammered home all summer through advertisements.
Notes:
[1] -- He did not "belittle" Obama's supporters. He observed that they "believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what." His brush stroke was too broad, but his observation holds for far too many Obama supporters.
[2] -- Let's see; "The private sector is doing fine"; "You didn't build that"; "Egypt isn't an ally or enemy" ....
[3] -- If Romney is indeed behind, which is open to question, he's well within the margin of error.
[4] -- If Mitt Romney has two more weeks like this, given his polling gains, Ann Romney will be measuring the White House drapes on November 7 -- if Michelle Obama will let her.
The proper take on the release of a tape which it is reasonable to believe the Obama campaign has known about since its creation four months ago is that Corn has been holding it in reserve in case he had to use it in October to tamp down a late Romney challenge. Oops. He had to release it now, because Team Obama knows it's in a dogfight, is losing its control of the narrative, and is desperately trying to get it back. Whitesides' pathetic write-up at Reuters betrays how over-the-top the press feels it must go in an attempt to keep their guy from sinking further.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
