Obama's poor polls: Proof that the Bain attacks aren't working?

Recent poll numbers have Obama and Mitt Romney tied, despite an aggressive effort by the Obama campaign to bash the GOP candidate's record at Bain

President Obama has lost his slim gain in the polls, which some have interpreted as evidence that Mitt Romney has survived Team Obama's attacks on his tenure at Bain.
(Image credit: Zhang Jun/Xinhua Press/Corbis)

Three recent polls show that the presidential race is neck-and-neck, despite the Obama campaign's merciless attacks on Mitt Romney's tenure at private equity firm Bain Capital. These are the first national polls to be released since The Boston Globe reported that Mitt Romney had remained at Bain for three years longer than he had claimed, which renewed focus on Romney's alleged ties to outsourcing and mass layoffs, and his unwillingness to release more than two years of tax returns. (Previous polls suggesting a boost from the Bain attacks came before the Globe report.) A New York Times/CBS poll even shows that Romney is leading the race by two percentage points, and that a record-low 39 percent of Americans approve of Obama's handling of the economy. Are the polls proof that the Bain attacks aren't working?

Yes. Voters are worried about the economy, not Bain: Everything the media is "obsessing over — Bain outsourcing, Mitt Romney's departure from Bain, and Romney's tax returns — is irrelevant to voters," says Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post. Obama "may be running against Romney, but the economy is beating him down." There is even evidence that the Bain attacks are hurting Obama, with more people holding an unfavorable view of him.

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