First while Romney was participating in the brutal Republican primaries to become the GOP nominee, then once he locked in the nomination, Obama went on a full out attack, using everything from Bain Capital, to outright lies on Romney's taxes, his wealth, and even sinking so low as to exploit a grieving widower, Joe Soptic, who lost his wife to cancer.
While the latest attack ad was from a pro-Obama superPAC, the initial ads using Mr. Soptic were from Obama's campaign.
Examples of the Obama campaign and DNC outspending Roney:
• June: Obama and the DNC spent $70.8 million, much of it on anti-Bain ads, while Romney and the RNC spent $38.8 million
• July: Obama entered July with $97.5 million in the bank, and used a part of it to run 35,347 television ads in the 14-day period ending July 16, according to New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG. The Romney campaign, which began July with $22.5 million, aired 16,946 spots during that period. Since more than 97 percent of those commercials were negative, that meant voters saw twice as many campaign-funded ads attacking Romney rather than Obama.
Not only has the Obama campaign outspent the Romney campaign, the New York Times and others report that Obama "has spent more campaign cash more quickly than any incumbent in recent history," and has been spending more than his campaign has been bringing in.
As Jennifer Rubin so delicately put it in mid-July, " the Obama team has shot its wad."
Obama and his campaign knows they threw all they had at Romney, outspending Romney massively and are now starting to panic as recent fundraising emails show Obama declaring, " I will be outspent this election," and also, telling donors that he is losing the "ad wars."
Really??? Outspending Romney 70.8 million to 38.8 million in June and showing 35,347 spots compared to team Romney's 16,946 in July, is losing the ad wars?
With that type of advantage if he is losing the ad wars, he is definitely doing something wrong.... but I digress.....
The point is, Obama, the DNC, Harry Reid and liberals gave it everything they had and Mitt Romney has barely been dented in the polls.
Reports show that over the last three months, Mitt Romney and the RNC has consistently outraised Obama and the DNC.
According to Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, the next nearly three months until the presidential election, "We now are in a position to oustpend (President Barack Obama's re-election effort) on television and tell our story and tell the Mitt Romney story, starting with our convention and going through the fall." (Source- CNN)
The advantage here for Romney is he can now spend his time and money on defining himself, letting the majority of attacks against Obama be from pro-Romney superPAC's and the mainstream media that is forced to report on the rising unemployment numbers, the stalled economy, the national deficit, debt, welfare usage, etc.... basically the results of Barack Obama's policies over the last nearly four years.
The news itself defines Obama.
From now until November we can expect to see a very different, stark contrast of what Barack Obama attempted to define Romney as.
For example, today in the New York Times:
The result was a rare Romney flop: The housing market soon collapsed, and he was stuck renting out the houses for years before unloading them, mostly at a loss, in the late 1990s, according to property records. The renters were offered the first chance to buy, but the Stampses could not qualify for a mortgage, recalled Mr. Stamps, who at the time had recently lost his job at an oil company.“Then I got this phone call, personally, from Mr. Romney, asking if we really wanted to buy the house,” Mr. Stamps, 63, said in an interview the other day at the barbershop he now runs. “I said, yes we did. And he said he would loan us the money. He really helped us when we needed it.”Amid the campaign furor over Mr. Romney’s wealth and taxes, the relatively tiny real estate investment — the mortgage generates less than $2,500 in annual interest income, according to his disclosures — has gone largely, though not entirely, overlooked.Mr. Stamps said that he and his wife had received calls in recent months from strangers who “seemed to be looking for negative stuff” about Mr. Romney, but that the couple had nothing to say to them. (The Stampses recently refinanced the original 30-year loan; the new mortgage, still with Mr. Romney, was dated June 12 but signed just two weeks ago. Details of the interest rate were not included in the public record.)
Romney is also participating in one of MSNBC's documentaries about the two candidates, while Obama has refused to give a personal interview for his MSNBC documentary, even though it is with the news outlet the most favorable to him.
Even before the all out, next three month pitch to American voters to define himself, Mitt Romney is benefiting from a Republican enthusiasm advantage over Democrats. Resurgent Republic has found that 62 percent of Republicans are extremely enthusiastic about the upcoming presidential election and only 49 percent of Democrats say they are extremely enthused, giving the GOP a 13 point advantage.
Other findings show that Independents have taken a 12 point swing away from Democrats. In 2008 Independents favored Obama over McCain, 52 percent to 44 percent. According to their 2012 ballot, Romney holds the advantage over Obama 45 percent to 40 percent.
Similarly, Catholics have taken a nine point swing away from Democrats, age group 18-29 has taken a 16 point swing away from Democrats from their 2008 numbers, still favoring Obama but by far less.
If these are the numbers before Romney kicks it into high gear, imagine what these numbers will show by election day.
It is Romney's turn now to define himself and remind voters what Obama has done over the last almost four years and time will tell if Obama survives the upcoming Romney storm as well as Romney survived Obama's.
Let the games begin.....