From “These Hands”

In this hard-hitting Romney campaign video, the GOP Presidential contender asks the question:

• Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy.
• But President Obama’s comments last week show that he just doesn’t understand who the real job creators are.
• How can he help small businesses when he doesn’t even recognize their value?

The Obama campaign may find the Roanoke comments, which were done off-teleprompter, the Waterloo of the President’s re-election campaign.

Here is the video, embedded below:

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney gestures during a campaign event at Horizontal Wireline Services on Tuesday, July 17, 2012 in Irwin, Pennsylvania

Mitt Romney is starting to show some fight and is striking back at what some in the media are calling President Obama’s Roanoke gaffe.

In an attempt to change the subject from his tax returns and his tenure at the helm of Bain Capital, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney intensified his own rhetoric on Tuesday and called President Obama’s recent comments about small business “insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America.”

Romney was referring to Obama’s remark on Friday at a campaign event in Roanoke, Va., where he argued that successful businesses happened not only because of individual achievement, but because people utilized parts of the public system, such as teachers, the Internet, and roads and bridges. Obama said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

While agreeing that government-paid employees and infrastructure are needed, Romney said that those services were not responsible for the success of new business.

“The taxpayers pay for government,” Romney said to applause from a fired-up crowd of several hundred people at a gas and oil equipment company. “It’s not like government just provides those to all of us and we say, ‘Oh thank you, Government, for doing those things.’ No, in fact we pay for them and we benefit from them and we appreciate the work that they do and the sacrifices that are done by people who work in government. But they did not build this business.”

Romney broadened his argument to suggest that Obama’s logic demeaned those who were trying to better themselves.

“People who reach to try and bring themselves up, the president would say, ‘Well you didn’t do that,’ ” Romney said. “You couldn’t have gotten to school without the roads the government built for you, and you couldn’t have gone to school without teachers, so you’re not responsible for that success.’ Look, President Obama attacks success and therefore under President Obama we have less success, and I will change that.”

I am positive that Romney’s political shop has told him to show some heat and some passion. President Obama threw open an opportunity and Romney is taking it.

Many conservatives are saying, it is about time.

Here is the video, embedded below:

According to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

“The lack of movement underscores intense polarization — about nine in 10 Republicans back Romney, and a similar proportion of Democrats support Obama — and a relatively small percentage of voters say there is a ‘good chance’ that they could change their minds before November. At this point, 74% of all voters are ‘definitely’ supporting Obama or Romney, and 12% say it is unlikely that they will switch from one to the other, making the race a settled issue for nearly nine in 10 voters.”

In another poll, Romney has taken the national lead, albeit a slight one.

Mitt Romney continues to hold a whisker-thin 1-percentage-point lead over President Obama in a head-to-head election match-up, but the former Massachusetts governor is eating into the president’s air of inevitability, according to the latest The Washington Times/JZ Analytics poll released Monday night.

The poll found Mr. Romney leading 43 percent to 42 percent — about the same margin as the poll in May, but Mr. Obama slipped on several key measures, including fewer voters who say they expect him to win, and fewer who say they are voting for him because he’s the best candidate.

The White House can read the polls and this is why the President has been attacking Romney so early in the race. But, will it be effective?

I doubt it.

The country is polarized and the election will come down to Ohio, Virginia and Nevada. Numerous ads have already been playing in those states and those folks must be sick of them already.

If the economy improves, President Obama will win re-election. If it doesn’t, he won’t.

Quite simple really.

The Obama and Romney campaigns are already in full advertising mode – in a race that is virtually tied.

In the 12 battleground states, the race is all but tied. Obama leads Romney 47%-45% among 1,200 registered voters in the poll June 22-29 — a tick closer than Obama’s 48%-44% lead among 2,404 voters in the rest of the USA over the same period.

The swing states survey focuses on a dozen states that aren’t firmly aligned with either Democrats or Republicans. That puts them in a position to tip the outcome in the Electoral College. The states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The candidates expend enormous time and effort raising money in such cities as New York, Los Angeles and Houston so they can then spend most of that money on ads in such media markets as Colorado Springs, Orlando and Richmond, Va.

The ad wars in just a few states, rather than policy positions will decide the Presidency.

Remember the Electoral College decides the race and again, here is my prediction for November: