The liberals will always tell you who they want as an opponent. The VP pick is no exception. As the speculation increases, Democratic pundits are coming out of the woodwork with their choices and in some cases non-choices.

The Obama campaign is attempting to scuff up those considered by political insiders to be most likely to join the GOP ticket. You’ll notice as you read or view them that in all cases they will downplay the strong candidates and inflate the credentials of the uninspiring ones.

Let’s look at who they’re concerned about. At the top of the current speculation is Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin. Current Democrat opinion points out that he is vulnerable to attack because of his budget proposals and push to reform Medicare. They see these as negatives that they can attack.

Let’s take a contrarian view of Ryan. At this stage of the campaign, aren’t the American people ready for a little honest talk about our spending practices as a country? Framed in the right manner, Ryan’s proposals will return the campaign to the real issues: the economy, jobs and the national debt. Team Obama is terrified that Ryan inclusion on the ticket will force them to talk about the administration’s record.

If Ryan is a favorite, then Marco Rubio is a co-favorite for the VP nod. Rubio, like Ryan, has a long record as a legislator. Elected to the Florida legislature at 26, he was the youngest Speaker of the Florida House. He crushed Charlie Crist, the sitting governor, for the Senate seat in 2010. He’s articulate, Hispanic and represents a key swing state.

The Democrat pundits are emphasizing his credit-card issues. He charged personal expenses on a party credit card, which he paid back. This is not an unusual occurrence in the political world. His friend, Rep. David Rivera is being investigated by Florida authorities. Rubio has simply remained loyal to a friend rather than throwing him under the bus as Obama has done.

Let’s be clear, any attacks on Rubio will open up a Pandora’s box of inquiries about Obama’s financial issues.The Republicans can go after him for his dealings with Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich, two convicted felons. Or the shady dealings of Valerie Jarrett. How about Michelle Obama’s no-show job with the University of Chicago Hospitals, first as executive director for community affairs and, beginning May 2005, as Vice President for Community and External Affairs? And these are just for starters.

Then, we have Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia who turned former Governor Tim Kaine’s $2 billion budget deficit into a $500 million surplus. His problems are a graduate school thesis that criticizes working women and a controversy in Virginia over legislation that forces women seeking an abortion to undergo an invasive ultrasound. These could play into the Democratic “war on women” narrative.

McDonnell has steered a center course in the Old Dominion and established himself as a practical problem solver rather than a doctrinaire conservative. The budget surplus was not done by sleight-of-hand budgetary tricks but by doing it the old-fashioned way: increasing employment and bringing new businesses to Virginia.

McDonnell is a 20+ year Army officer whose oldest daughter served as an Army officer in Iraq. He’s well-versed in foreign relations with his numerous overseas trips to entice businesses to locate in Virginia.

The Democrats would probably like to see Tim Pawlenty as the VP pick because he’s so bland. When you look up “Minnesota Nice” in the dictionary, his picture is there. A two-term governor, he really doesn’t bring anything to the ticket, other than the proverbial “do no harm” warning.

Then we have former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who is smart, articulate, African-American and a foreign policy expert. She’s something of a liability due to her years with George W. Bush. They’d like Romney to pick her because she’s moderately pro-choice and her selection would shred the party. Besides, she’s said on  a number of occasions that she is not interested.

Senator Rob Portman of Ohio has a similar Bush connection and his selection like Rice’s would lead to ads emphasizing the Bush connection. Portman does represent another large swing state but other than that he brings nothing else to the ticket. In Portman’s defense he would do no harm to the ticket.

Only Mitt Romney and his inner staff knows the thinking of the candidate. Does he go for a big splash or a more subdued choice? We’ll know in the next several weeks.

In the last several days, the name of Condoleezza Rice as the Vice Presidential candidate has percolated to the top of the list of potentials. Rice, the former Secretary of State for George W. Bush, has many talents that recommend her to Governor Mitt Romney.

First and foremost, she is a brilliant scholar and practitioner of real world American Power. As National Security Adviser and Secretary for President Bush, Rice pioneered the policy of Transformational Diplomacy, with a focus on democracy in the Greater Middle East. It inaugurated a new phase in American foreign policy in which we began to encourage democratically elected governments rather that support authoritarian regimes.

Rice was the second African-American Secretary of State, following Colin Powell. She was the second woman and the first African American woman to serve in that position. She was also the first woman to serve as the National Security Adviser. As a pioneer in so many roles, why not not the first woman Vice President?

On several occasions, Rice has adamantly stated that she was not interested in the position but there are many reasons why she would be a perfect fit. As a foreign policy expert, Rice is the only potential VP candidate with real world foreign policy. We all know that the Obama campaign will attack the Romney team for their lack of experience in this area. Marco Rubio, another favorite, serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but there’s no substitute for practical experience in the dangerous world that we live in.

Rice’s speech at a Romney donor retreat in June in Park City, Utah. Discussing the speech during an interview later in the month, Rice told CBS News that she believed it resonated because of her discussion of the American spirit.

“I talked about the need for American leadership; I talked about the importance of the United States to a more peaceful world, a world that has been quite turbulent in recent years and needs a strong American anchor. But I also talked about the essence of America, and perhaps that’s what people resonated with.”

As all good potential Vice Presidential candidates, Rice downplayed speculation that she would be the pick. She went as far as saying to Charlie Rose on ABCs Good Morning America, “It’s not going to happen — and no.”

And yet, when you compare her qualifications to those of other potential candidates, Rice continues to exhibit strengths that Romney needs. Let’s face it, good or bad, her name recognition is at the top of the charts. She’s a good public speaker with a wonderful personality. She’s a quick study and has a Ph.D. in political science from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Her dissertation centered on military policy and politics in what was then the communist state of Czechoslovakia.

She’s one of the most recognizable woman in the world, even after three and a half years of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Finally, Condi Rice has an unbelievable backstory. She is the descendant of Alabama slaves who were sharecroppers after emancipation. Both of her parents were teachers; her mother in high school, her father in high school and at the University of Denver.

As an African American, Rice will change the Democrat narrative from its current position that the Republican Party is filled with elitist, white people. Can you imagine how Joe Biden would debate her on that subject?

Asked why she became a Republican, Condoleezza Rice has a fairly simple explanation. s she told the 2000 Republican National Convention, “My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did.”

If this election is about American exceptionalism, then Condoleezza Rice or Marco Rubio should be our candidate for the Vice Presidency.

It’s time to give Barack Obama and his allies the cold steel of reality about the real issues of this Presidential campaign. It’s not about all sorts of peripheral issues that the Obama campaign keeps throwing up like sand in the face of an opponent. It’s not about social issues like abortion or inequality of pay that the Obama people seem to think will garner them more women’s votes.

What is about is the cold steel of reality that the U.S. economy is like a swimmer going down for the second time. Obama can no longer blame George W. Bush for the economic woes that we face. It’s time for him to be made responsible the miserable state of the current economy.

Besides, if you’re a student of history, you’ll realize that many of our economic woes stem from the share-the-wealth laws passed by past Democratic administrations. Doesn’t anyone out there remember that the Democrats regained control of both houses of the Congress in the 2006 mid-term elections?

The basis of the current woes began with the bursting of the housing bubble. This impacted multiple sectors of the American economy: home construction, durable goods manufacturing, mortgage banking and skilled trades. The cascade of economic bad news became an avalanche that took the American economy with it.

The Democrat Party’s belief that everyone should own a home, a laudable but unachievable goal, led the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to provide low interest financing with little or no down payments. The new homeowners had no “skin in the game”, a favorite Obama line, because they had little or no money invested.

Like Americans who pay nothing in taxes, they felt free to walk away from “underwater” mortgages, leaving vacant homes for the banks to foreclose on. This created a glut of empty homes on the market, which in turn forced a slowdown of the home construction industry. The rest, unfortunately, is history.

It’s time for Mitt Romney and his allies to stick the bayonet of the failing economy in the Obama campaign. The destruction of the finest, most resilient economy that the world has ever seen by the Democrats should be the issue. Everything else is a child of the failing economy: Obamacare, the stimulus spending, unemployment, the national debt, the deficit and the destruction of the housing industry.

For a group that continues to raise tens of millions in contributions, the Republicans seem to have turned as passive as McCain did in 2008. Are we missing something here? Are they afraid of the left-leaning media who might tag them as bullies or racists? If so, we might as well give up now. We’re beaten months before the election.

Instead, Mitt Romney needs to bludgeon Barack Obama on his economic decisions all day, everyday. Bury him in a wave of negative advertising like he did to his opponents during the primaries. Pummel him on his class-warfare campaigning. Rebut each and every false charge against Romney.

Explain to the American voters about the outsourcing that was done to entice foreigners to order American products in their home countries. The American people will understand that high-paying American manufacturing are much more valuable than low-paying call center jobs.

Barack Obama cannot be allowed to feature spurious charges in his campaign and pass them off as the truth. If you tell a lie long enough and loud enough, it becomes the truth.

We now have enough of a financial edge to literally drive the Obama untruth machine into dust. The more that we make them spend now, the less that they will have in September and October.

It’s time to take the nice guy gloves off and give ‘em the cold steel.

Now that we know that Mitt Romney is on first, all of America wants to know who’s on second as his vice-presidential running mate. Every pundit worth his or her punditry ‘license’ has commented, wrote a column or created a list of possible running mates for the Republican nominee. The VP guessing game has become on of the most important exercises in the media.

Before we examine some of the hopefuls, we need to examine the most important parameter that Romney has set for his running mate. It’s just this: in event of his death or incapacity, the vice president must be able to step into the Oval Office and assume the Presidency. This is a clear and simple  directive from a man who has functioned as a corporate CEO, head of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games and Governor of Massachusetts.

Romney is known as a thorough executive who is a demanding taskmaster and is capable of digesting mountains of information. He has tasked his former chief of staff, Beth Myers, to oversee the vetting process for the vice presidential pick. Romney has pointed out as recently as earlier this week that only he and Myers will know his choice.

With a boss like that, the vice presidential choice will need to have a similar capacity for work. Not all politicians fit this profile. For instance, Barack Obama is more of a big-picture guy while Jimmy Carter was a micro-manager. Some politicians prefer to lead by speaking while others get into the policy weeds. It’s anyone’s guess what type Romney is looking for: a clone or an opposite.

Another factor that Romney will need to consider is foreign policy experience. He has virtually no experience at up-to-date foreign policy issues but who does except people in the current administration. Romney’s ideal candidate would have some working knowledge of current foreign policy issues.

Ethnic and geographical diversity is a plus but Governor Romney will not eliminate an eminently qualified candidate who has neither. Gender diversity is a plus but Romney is neck and neck with Obama at this point. He doesn’t need to make a big splash like McCain did in 2008.

That leaves us with the same cast of potential candidates as we’ve heard about before. Let’s take a look at the possibilities.

Rob Portman, the junior senator from Ohio, has a sufficient amount of gravitas. He has also served in a number of critical positions with six terms in the House, one year as U.S. Trade Representative and on e year as Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Portman was elected to the Senate in 2010. He is a low-key Midwesterner from a key electoral state who must be considerede a leading contender.

Suddenly, the Romney campaign staff is talking up former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty due to his willingness to work hard for the campaign. Pawlenty’s entire governmental experience has been at the state level and a Romney/Pawlenty ticket would be vulnerable on foreign policy (not that Obama has done America much good in this arena).

Conservatives like Senator John Thune from South Dakota but he hasn’t stirred up much excitement. That may be a good thing, because what presidential candidate wants to be outshone by their running mate (other than John McCain, of course). Thune has never served on a foreign affairs committee in either the House or the Senate.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has received the most attention simply based on being a Hispanic in a country where Hispanics are the fastest growing group. The young (recently turned 41), articulate legislator was the youngest Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, serving as a legislator for nine years. He is currently serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rubio is a Roman Catholic in a country where it is the largest single denomination with 68.5 million members while Romney is a Mormon, with 6.1 million members nationally.

Then we have Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Chairman of the House Budget Committee. Another Republican rising star, Ryan may have alienated too many people with his outspoken honesty on the country’s debt and deficit issues. He has never run for state-wide office and has served in the House for 13 years with increasingly more responsibility. Another Roman Catholic, he would also bring his solid Midwestern values to the ticket. He is from a key swing state where Romney is looking to build a path to victory.

If Romney feels that he needs to solidify the Solid Republican South and add ethnic diversity then Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is the answer. A dedicated public servant with an eye-popping resume, Jindal is the American-born son of Indian immigrants. Another young (41) Republican rising star, he would bring both ethnic and geographic diversity to the ticket. Jindal is another Roman Catholic who would bring a balance to ticket in the case of religion.

That complete’s the top tier and we’ll have plenty of time to comment further since Romney isn’t expected to announce his selection for at least a month.

Over the past several weeks, a new narrative about Barack Obama has begun the emerge. Where he and his campaign staff were once considered the “best of all time” we now have the image of a bumbling, sputtering campaign team and an equally out-of-touch candidate.

In 2008, Barack Obama was lauded by the mainstream media as one of the greatest campaigners of all time. Let’s consider his opposition. Senator John McCain, a self-professed maverick, captured the nomination by using the Republican process of front-loaded open primaries to rack up impressive delegate counts in the early state primaries and caucuses.

Once, McCain won the nomination, he seemed to have fulfilled his wish. Taking a self-inflicted wound on campaign financing, he chose to accept public financing. The following day Obama turned it down. McCain was a dead candidate walking from that point on.

The entire banking crisis and the TARP funding gave Obama the credibility that he needed to convince the American people that he was qualified to  be their president. Meanwhile, Senator McCain foolishly suspended his campaign in order to appear statesmanlike and return to Washington. For goodness sake, Barack Obama didn’t even take time off to bury his grandmother. This was the woman that essentially raised him.

Fast forward to 2012. Barack Obama has trashed the American economy, depreciated his country around the world and cut and run from two wars. Aided and abetted by the mainstream media, he has been able to build an image as a consummate politician. Until now.

Like the Emperor who paraded naked in the tale, Barack Obama has been unmasked as an amateur when it comes to governing and a destroyer of his country’s very strength. Compared to Mitt Romney, a man with true ability, Barack Obama is a rank amateur when it comes to the economy. Let’s remember that this is a man that has never really worked in a real business or had to meet a payroll.

He has spent his entire adult life either as a community organizer, a law student, a young lawyer, an Constitutional Law instructor and an aspiring politician. Where’s the beef?

Now his campaign is trying to besmirch the record of a man who hit .780 in successful investments, saved the Salt Lake City Olympics from going into the red and then helped increase employment as the Governor of Massachusetts.

The Obama campaign has no where else to go. They tried to attack Romney through his association with Bain Capital but Obama’s own supporters, Governor Deval Patrick and former President Bill Clinton, knocked the props out from that approach.

We now are seeing large segments of the media criticizing Team Obama’s mudslinging approach. Meanwhile, when the Bain approach didn’t work, they have now tried to criticize his tenure as Governor.

At some point, the public is going to wonder if Barack Obama is afraid to talk about the economy and jobs. Dick Morris thinks that his next line of attack will be foreign affairs. Let’s see. The Stimulus President didn’t work. Neither did the Healthcare President, the Green Energy President or the Jobs President.

Why not try the Foreign Affairs President? Where will the campaign go when the Taliban begin their summer campaign while we’re withdrawing or the European economy implodes? The new narrative is right: Barack Obama is an amateur. Let’s get a real President.

REPRINTED FROM ALLTHINGSPOLITICALTODAY.COM

The Obama campaign is setting up an interesting argument. It boils down to using Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s former company, as a club to beat up the Republican nominee. On the other side, Romney’s campaign is using Solyndra, the failed solar tube manufacturer in a similar fashion.

The Romney campaign is using Solyndra and several of the other failed “Green Energy” initiatives in the same way that Obama’s is using failed Bain investments. The problem that Team Obama has had with their examples is that they took place over a decade ago and in several prominent cases, Romney had already left the firm. Guilt by association seldom works.

Solyndra and the other failed “Green Energy” initiatives are more immediate. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy less than a year ago. The details are fresh in the voters’ minds with the images of the closed manufacturing facility a stunning backdrop for Romney speeches on the subject.             READ MORE

The 2012 campaign may go down in history as the nastiest, most negative campaign in American history. Team Obama has already begun their drumbeat of negative advertising against Mitt Romney.

Team Obama has focused on a number of facets of Mitt Romney’s business career at Bain Capital. Started in 1994 by Romney and two other partners, Bain Capital was a spin-off from the consulting firm, Bain and Company. The venture capital company has invested in or acquired hundreds of companies including such well-known companies as Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Clear Channel Communications, Domino’s Pizza, Dunkin’ Donuts, Sealy, The Sports Authority, Staples, Toys “R” Us, Warner Music Group and The Weather Channel.

The Obama campaign has tried to attack Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital by pointing to several companies that either went bankrupt or experienced job cuts. In some cases the company closings came after Romney left Bain. In others, Bain’s investment was a last-ditch attempt to save the company.

All that the Romney campaign needs to do is refer to the Wall Street Journal study showing that 22 percent of the companies he helped went broke but 78 percent did fine. ‘Batting .780 is great in any league.’ Americans will understand this equation, especially during the baseball season where .300 is considered an All-Star’s average.

Discussing the need for high returns for investors, the economics of outsourcing or Obama’s lack of experience are not productive arguments. Americans want and need a simple answer to the Obama negatives on Romney’s job creation experience.

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) has joined the criticism of the Romney record in a way that the Obama campaign didn’t really appreciate. On MSNBC, he accused Romney and Bain Capital, “there’s something about raping companies and leaving them in debt and setting up swiss bank accounts and corporate businesses in the grand Caymans.”

The Obama campaign was forced to respond to Clyburn’s incendiary comments. ”We strongly disagree with Congressman Clyburn’s choice of words- they have no place in this conversation,” said Obama Campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith. However, she added, “But we do believe that Mitt Romney should come clean about his record as a corporate buyout specialist and how, contrary to his claims of creating jobs, his focus was on reaping quick profits for investors at the expense of workers and middle class families.”

The Obama campaign’s outsourcing charge is easily disposed of by pointing to General Motors. The auto company which was rescued by the government is pointed out by Obama on campaign stops as his signal achievement in job saving. However, he doesn’t reveal that 160,000 of General Motor’s 220,000 jobs are outsourced. This response really takes the air out of the Obama balloon.

Team Obama is starting to get to the healthcare issue. What will happen if the Supreme Court finds all or part of it unconstitutional is anyone’s guess. But Team Obama has accused Romney of planning on gutting Medicare. This is ironic in light of the fact that Obama has cut $500 billion from the program. In fact, Romney needs to respond that he is in favor of keeping the current Medicare system as an alternative to vouchers if the elderly opt for it. Again, this stops this line of negative campaigning on a dime.

Obama loves to attack oil companies and their high profits. He doesn’t point out that those high profits fund new exploration and production that keeps prices at the pump within bounds. Repealing the oil companies tax benefits will only serve to raise prices. And Romney needs to go after Obama on this very point. Swing voters break even on agreeing or disagreeing with this line of argument by 47-46.

Finally, we have the so-called ‘Buffet Rule’. This policy that that millionaires pay 30 percent of their income in taxes has been championed by Obama. Of course, in a classic do as I say not as I do, the Obamas pay about 20% on their income. Pointing out the mathematical fact that it would only collect $70 billion against the national debt of almost $16 trillion or the annual deficit of $1.3 trillion blunts this line of attack.

All Romney needs to do throughout the campaign is rebut each attack as it comes up. Honestly, they’re so formulaic and predictable that the Romney campaign could have their responses in the can and ready to go.

I wrote this post back in November of last year but I never posted it. However, the substance of the original posts still holds true today, six months later. I’ve edited the original and updated it to reflect the fact that the two remaining candidates, Romney and Obama, have not fully addressed the real issues of the campaign.

Although Mitt Romney has made every attempt to address what should be the real issues of the campaign, Barack Obama has run away from every discussion. He prefers to focus on wedge issues. The Democrat’s ongoing class warfare campaign, gay marriage sideshow and other peripheral issues seems to be his strategy for avoiding the real issues.

Those real issues as we all know are the economy and jobs. Not gay marriage, not Romney’s alleged bullying, not Obama’s campaigning on the taxpayer’s dime. This is not the time for multi-tasking. Unless the dual problems of the economy and employment are solved, we won’t need to worry about the other issues. We’ll be bankrupt and no better than Greece or the other eurozone unfortunates.

The candidates are all over the lot on the issues of the campaign. They need to focus like laser beams on jobs and the economy. Not on abortion, gay marriage or any of the other false trails that the left would like them to wander down.

Without a plan for the economy and increased jobs all of the rest is nothing but hot air. Fix the economy and create new jobs, then we can worry about immigration, foreign policy and all of the other extraneous issues that are distracting the us from the necessary focus.

First and foremost, we have the economy. Nothing else matters until we can heal the American economy. It won’t be as easy as it sounds unless we can retain the House and gain a 60 seat majority in the Senate. Romney needs to make that clear to the voters. If we want a functioning economy, we need to give him the tools if he is elected President.

A major part of fixing the economy is having a viable plan for the recovery of the housing sector. Housing represents 17-18% of the U.S. economy. Without a vibrant housing sector, other critical sectors will not recover.

We need a plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It’s time to merge them, flush out the political appointees and set it the remainder as a private non-government entity. Or perhaps, eliminate them altogether and allow the Federal Housing Authority to do what it was intended to do.  Whatever is done needs to be done immediately after the inauguration.

The jobs problem is the other real issue of this campaign. Our candidate needs to put forward viable plans that encourage and assist job growth in the private sector. We’re going to need them after we downsize the bloated government bureaucracy. The private sector needs to hear certainty from the Republicans; certainty on taxes and fees; certainty on regulations and certainty the size of government.

After they solve these two real issues some of the other issues can be debated. The Republican candidates should look to Bob McDonnell of Virginia’s successful run for the governorship in 2009. Although McDonnell is a social conservative he campaigned on the economy, jobs and taxes.

There were no distractions about abortion, gay marriage or other social issues. He won going away. This year the Commonwealth of Virginia had a surplus in excess of $540 million.

‘Romney is not qualified to be President of the United States.’ This is the thrust of the latest Obama campaign tactics that are attempting to lower the public image of Mitt Romney.

The strategist’s on Team Obama has done a classic flip flop on the presumptive Republican nominee. Along with their willing accomplices in the mainstream media, they have reversed their description of Romney. Where they once described him as a substanceless, serial office seeker, we now have a new Mitt Romney.

The new description is almost laughable if it wasn’t such a serious attempt to tar Romney as an arch-conservative who only needs to be elected to show his true colors. We’ve seen this strategy, if you could call that, before. Team Obama lifted it from the White House and Congressional Democrat’s description of the Republican opposition in the Congress.

According to Chris Matthews of MSNBC, the new strategy was formulated by former President Bill Clinton. Obama and his team must really believe that they’re in trouble if they are willing to listen to Clinton. They are looking for the voters to believe that Romney has hidden his arch-conservative values for over 20 years, just waiting for this very moment.

Unlike the current occupant of the Oval Office, Mitt Romney has a paper trail a mile long. He founded and ran a highly successful investment capital firm for over two decades. He successfully and profitably ran the Salt Lake City Olympic games. He was the Governor of Massachusetts. He was instrumental in implementing the Massachusetts health care plan, familiarly called RomneyCare.

If Mitt Romney is an arch-conservative then what was he doing for the last several decades. It simply is not a charge that will stick. As usual, the Democrats believe that the media will go along with their talking points but one look at his record will vaporize their entire approach.

Huffington Post editor and MSNBC political analyst Howard Fineman put the Obama strategy in perspective, saying that it was the White House’s attempt to derail the Romney candidacy by crafting a narrative around him as a ‘flip-flopper.’

“They wanted to emphasize the flip-flop message because they wanted to make the right-wing of the Republican party fearful of Mitt Romney,” said Fineman. “They wanted to sow as much discord as possible – which is why they did it that way. Soon as Romney wraps it up, they move to different strategies.”

Fineman was forced to admit that the tactic is not really working. Now the Democrats have to come up with a new tactic that defines Romney as Attila the Hun with a platform to match that persona.

The Obama campaign has also tried to disqualify him in the eyes of the voters by framing him as someone who is only interested in creating wealth for himself and his friends. So far, this charge seems to have some staying power. Obama has a 10-point edge, 50 percent to 40 percent, on the question of who is “sharing your values.” Obama also has an advantage, 58 percent to 35 percent, on who stands up more for the middle class.

The Romney camp will need to reframe the candidate’s image as one who can pull the economy out of the doldrums and raise everybody’s fortunes up with it. When it comes to discussing the economy, Mitt Romney should be able to run over the President.

Remember, that this is a leader who doesn’t lead while Romney already gives the electorate confidence in his ability in the economic sphere. As long as the Republicans can stay on message and Romney keeps saying, “it’s still about the economy and we’re not stupid”, people will continue to pay attention.

Ever since Rick Santorum put his campaign on neutral, Mitt Romney has begun to move up in the polls. It’s as if the speed governors have been released and he can take advantage of his well-oiled machine.

No more jibes about Romneycare from the right. Or questions about his true beliefs. The presumptive-nominee is cruising along in high gear simply talking about the issues and how badly Barack Obama has done with the real problems of America.

Mitt Romney is a disciplined candidate and he’s not about to lose focus about the real issues in the country: the economy and jobs. It’s not about contraception, abortion or a phony war on women. Plain and simple its about the economy and its cousin, jobs.

Team Obama and its surrogates have made several stumbles in the same time frame. Democrats can always be expected to overreach when they feel that they’re in command. Hilary Rosen’s comments about Ann Romney’s career choice: ”His wife has actually never worked a day in her life,” Rosen said on CNN. “She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids? How do we send them to school? And why we worry about their future.”

This was a huge misstep for the campaign. With friend’s like this Team Obama doesn’t need enemies and they immediately threw Ms. Rosen under the bus with some of the others who displeased the President.

The Romney campaign responded with an immediate coordinated response. First, Ann Romney responded via Twitter (her first tweet): ”I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.” Her Twitter profile is indicative of her choices: ”Mom of five boys. Grandmother of 16. Out campaigning for @MittRomney. #Mitt2012.”

Ms. Rosen would not back down and responded with a series of Tweets. In the end, she was declared officially “dead to us” by Obama and David Axelrod. She was forced or asked to cancel her scheduled appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this Sunday, saying she has already “said enough.”

The Democrat’s contention that the Republicans were waging a “War on Women” suddenly evaporated like an ice cube in hell. Under the glare of the media and pundit fact-checkers, it appears that Obama is polling the same with women as he did four years ago, a 12% spread. Coincidentally, it’s the same spread that the Democrat’s historically held. So much for that offensive against Romney.

The President then proceeded to Cartagena, Columbia where he was faced with a burgeoning sex scandal in his Secret Service and military advance teams. This will be an on-going embarrassment for the White House as salacious details are dripped out to the public. Of course, he was not personally involved but the optics really don’t look good.

This was followed by criticism from the president’s of Brazil and Colombia, complaining that America was “exporting unemployment.” They also pointed out that the slow recovery of the American economy was impacting their own. It was as if they received their talking points from the Romney campaign.

They also questioned the success of America’s War on Drugs which they felt was not accomplishing its goals. Once again, all of the participants pushed for the inclusion of Cuba in the next summit meeting. Several leaders went as far as promising not to return if Cuba was not invited.

Then, we have the on-going General Services Administration’s Vegas scandal that is unfolding under the glare of cameras in Congressional hearing rooms. So far we’ve had Jeffrey Neely, the “mastermind” of the Western Region conference, take the Fifth Amendment a half-dozen times under questioning from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the committee. Let me be clear, this was Mr. Neely’s constitutional right but again the optics look bad.

As other details of this boondoggle become more widely known to the public, it will become an increasing liability for the administration. Under the theory “that where’s there smoke, there’s fire” enterprising reporters will probe into this department in particular and the executive branch, in general to look for other instances of waste, fraud and abuse. Expect the Issa committee to continue investigating any and all tips about corruption. After all, everyone does love a train wreck.

All of this has rebounded to Mitt Romney’s credit. Despite attempts by the mainstream media to lessen the impact on the Obama campaign, the public’s eyes have been opened to the failures of leadership by Barack Obama.

The Daily Rasmussen Poll of likely voters has turned in Mitt Romney’s favor with 4% lead over the last several days. Rasmussen is the most accurate pollster in recent times with his emphasis on likely voters rather than registered voters. After all, how many registered will vote in the November election? Historically, it’s about 60%.

As if this wasn’t enough, the high price of gas is becoming a serious negative issue for the President. Every time, people fill up, they’ll start to see “Vote Republican” at the pump.