Barack Obama, 2012 Presidential Election | featured news

The good news for Mitt Romney: He remains within striking distance of President Obama. The bad news: His latest misstep could upend that.

It turns out Mitt Romney isn’t the only presidential candidate to have a video leak this week. Fresh on the heels of Romney’s leaked campaign fundraising video, in which the Republican candidate calls 47 percent of Americans "dependent on government" since they don’t pay federal income taxes, a recording from a purported 1998 Loyola University appearance by President Barack Obama has been posted to YouTube.

That didn't take long. President Obama's re-election campaign has put out a video featuring voter criticism of Mitt Romney's closed door critique of Obama voters.

President Obama's handling of China receives "somewhat mixed reviews from the public," a new poll says. The Pew Research Center reports that 45% say Obama is not being tough enough, while 39% say Obama's China policy is about right.

The latest tracking poll by Latino Decisions — which includes data reflecting the full impact of the party conventions — finds that Obama picked up three points, rising to 68 percent support compared with Romney’s 26 percent.

In a brief and hastily called news conference Monday just after 10 p.m., Mr. Romney acknowledged having made the blunt political and cultural assessment, saying it was “not elegantly stated,” but he stood by the substance of the remarks, insisting that he had made similar observations in public without generating controversy.

...He dismissed these Americans as freeloaders who pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives, and who think government should take care of them.

President Barack Obama's lead over Republican Mitt Romney narrowed to 5 percentage points in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday, from a high of seven points in the week after the Democratic National Convention.

The confrontation between Chicago teachers and Mayor Rahm Emanuel escalated on Sunday when their union extended a strike and the mayor said he would go to court to block the walkout, risking more friction within President Barack Obama's political coalition as the November 6 election nears.

Voters have long favored President Obama over Mitt Romney for handling terrorism and advancing the interests of the middle class. Romney, however, has consistently enjoyed a wide advantage on only one issue: the nation’s gaping budget deficit.