 |
| Barack Obama |
President Barack Obama is perched on a economic and political cliff edge: to one side lies solid ground and four more White House years, to the other, a plunge to defeat after a single term.
Dismal jobs data, a slowing economy and fears that Europe’s crisis will darken American skies came as a sickening blow last week to Obama’s campaign, five months before election day on November 6.
Republican candidate Mitt Romney started the week, in which he finally reached the benchmark number of delegates needed to clinch his party’s nomination, being pilloried for appearing with Donald Trump, as the mogul blanketed cable news with claims that Obama is not American-born.
But he ended it as a rise in the unemployment rate to 8.2% bolstered his core argument - that Obama is an economic failure who cannot create jobs.
“The job of the president is to get Americans back to work. He’s not up to the task, he’s over his head,” Romney told CNBC.
As Romney staggered through a Republican primary race strewn with his own gaffes, Washington’s chattering classes saw him as no match for Obama.
But the zeitgeist has shifted.
Indications that Obama may struggle to reach his 2008 fundraising total of $750mn and a report by the Politico news website that outside groups could spend $1bn to defeat the president have further boosted Romney.
Obama’s early attacks on Romney as a corporate “vampire” have yet to reshape the race and been undermined by some key Democrats.
But in a RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Obama stood at 46% ahead of Romney at just under 44%, and 48% approved of the job he is doing.
That left Obama tantalisingly close to the 50% threshold that would offer strong promise of reelection, but also with zero margin for error. His campaign seems right on the margin of victory or defeat.