Friday, September 21, 2012

THE RACE: Hard for both sides to focus on economy

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney waves to supporters before he makes a speech in Miami, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney waves to supporters before he makes a speech in Miami, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

First lady Michelle Obama, speaks about the importance of voting Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012 at Williams Arena at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. (AP Photo/Daily Free Press, Janet S. Carter) MANDATORY CREDIT

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at a rally at Darwin Fuchs Pavilion in Miami, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

For months, all the major polls have identified the economy as the No. 1 presidential election issue. But it drifts in and out of focus on the campaign trail as first one side and then the other becomes occupied with something else.

Republican challenger Mitt Romney keeps trying to swing attention back to the dour jobs outlook and President Barack Obama's economic stewardship. But Romney keeps getting knocked off course.

Right now, he's trying to reset his campaign strategy, yet again, to spell out more clearly ? in the nearly two weeks before the first presidential debate ? just what he'd do as president to help lift Americans' economic plight.

But he's still reeling from the adverse fallout from his videotaped comments about Americans who don't pay taxes.

He's even got a new campaign line he's started using: "My campaign is about the 100 percent in America."

It's an attempted comeback from his controversial assertion in the video that "47 percent" of Americans don't pay income taxes, "see themselves as victims," and are dependent on the federal government.

Obama was also knocked off stride a bit by his "you didn't build that" remarks in July. And he's undergone campaign strategy resets several times.

Both Obama's and Romney's campaigns have been roiled by violence in the Middle East and the killings of four Americans in Libya, including the U.S. ambassador.

Another reason the campaign dialogue shifts away from the economy so often is that nothing much has changed lately. Job creation and economic growth are proceeding at a glacial pace.

Both candidates were spending more time campaigning in swing states and both were in Florida on Thursday. Obama had events in the Miami area and in Tampa, Romney in Sarasota.

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Follow Tom Raum on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tomraum. For more AP political coverage, look for the 2012 Presidential Race in AP Mobile's Big Stories section. Also follow https://twitter.com/APcampaign and AP journalists covering the campaign: https://twitter.com/AP/ap-campaign-2012

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-09-20-The%20Race/id-cda0e97af8d640c8a9c3ce2630469ce3

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