A piece over at The Moderate Voice, by the liberal Joe Gandelman, discusses Romney's raising more money than Obama, again, for the month of July but his last sentence really struck me:
"It will come down to likability and trustworthiness for many swing voters (not what’s said on MSNBC or Fox News)."
I heartily disagree with Mr. Gandelman, it will not come down to "likability and trustworthiness", it will come down to incompetence vs competence and who the public thinks can turn the economy around and bring the unemployment numbers (which just rose to 8.3 percent) down.
Liberals continue to live with the hope that Obama's moderately favorable numbers with trump his complete recovery failure, but polling shows that is a pipe dream.
USA Today/Gallup polling in late July found that Romney "scores a significant advantage" over Obama on "managing the economy, reducing the federal budget deficit and creating jobs." They also find that by "more than 2-1, 63%-29%, those surveyed say Romney's background in business, including his tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, would cause him to make good decisions, not bad ones, in dealing with the nation's economic problems over the next four years."
In a poll conducted for The Hill, which asked "Has President Obama taken the right actions to revive the economy or has he taken the wrong actions and slowed the recovery down?", 53 percent of likely voters answered "wrong" and only 42 percent answered "right."
CBS News/New York Times polling found that "On handling the economy – which most voters say will be extremely important in theirvote -- Mitt Romney holds an advantage over Obama by 49 percent to 41 percent.
With those numbers in mind, consider Gallup's July 30, 2012 findings that Americans say the next president's top priorities should be creating good jobs and reducing corruption in the federal government, while they assign much less importance to increasing taxes on the wealthy and dealing with environmental concerns.
We are three months away from the November presidential election and while in 2008, likability factored in heavily for Obama who had no record to speak of, 2012 is far different. Obama now has a record, the last nearly four years, and Obama's handling of the economy, job creation and the federal deficit is suffering high disapproval numbers.
Democrats and liberals may wish that Obama's likability will trump his incompetence among Independent voters, but consistent polling evidence is indicative of an electorate that is going to favor Romney's perceived competence over Obama's proven incompetence.
For the record, Obama's likability is starting to suffer from his massive negative campaigning.