McManus: The Obama edge

The president's campaign strategy of attacking Mitt Romney as a heartless capitalist is paying off.

Doyle McManus, LA Times

June 28, 2012

On paper, June looked like a bad month for President Obama. It began with a gaffe, his lighthearted comment that "the private sector is doing fine." Then the Federal Reserve revised its growth forecast downward, making it clear that a 8% unemployment is likely to linger past election day. Consumer confidence has sagged to a five-month low, and in one poll released this week, 61% of Americans said they think the country's on the wrong track.

On top of that, Mitt Romney is out-raising the president in campaign donations, an unusual problem for an incumbent to face.

So how, amid all that bad news, has Obama clung to a narrow lead of about 3 percentage points in an average of major polls? And how has he built a more impressive margin in the 12 swing states that will actually decide the election, 50% to 42% in an NBC News-Wall Street Journal Poll released this week?

Part of the reason is that Obama has the incumbency advantage, and he's been using it in a blur of executive action to remind the Democratic electorate that he's their guy. He has made it easier for students to repay their loans. He endorsed gay marriage after years of waffling, a decision one Romney advisor privately conceded was "a net plus for the president." He announced that the government would stop deporting most undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children.

(More here.)