First Read notes that there’s bad news for Democrats and President Barack Obama in swing states:
*** It don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing-state strength: Turning the general election, a new USA Today/Gallup poll of swing states “finds the number of voters who identify themselves as Democratic or Democratic-leaning in these key states has eroded, down by 4 percentage points, while the ranks of Republicans have climbed by 5 points. Republican voters also are more attentive to the campaign, more enthusiastic about the election and more convinced that the outcome matters.” More from the poll: “In the swing states, Obama now trails former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among registered voters by 5 points, 43% vs. 48%, and former House speaker Newt Gingrich by 3, 45% vs. 48%. That’s a bit worse than the president fares nationwide, where he leads Gingrich 50%-44% and edges Romney 47%-46%.” Caveat: It’s striking to see this kind of discrepancy between the swing-state and nationwide numbers. So a bit of caution… By the way, today President Obama does a round of local news interviews — three of four in swing states — in Norfolk, VA, Pensacola, FL, Colorado Springs, CO, and Seattle.
Obama will need more than local interviews. On the other hand, the GOP continues to show signs that it will pull defeat from the jaws of victory in the battle between the center-right establishment and the hard-right Tea Party/talk show wings which threatens to create enduring tensions the party and turn off independent voters and moderates.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.