Barack Obama, 2012 Presidential Election | featured news

In a campaign fast growing nasty, the Republican National Committee is trying a gentler approach... Several Republicans who weren't involved in making the ad say a softer approach may be essential to the effort to defeat Obama in November, given polls showing him with strong personal favorability ratings. The ad is airing in Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Colorado and Iowa.

President Barack Obama blasted Mitt Romney's economic plan during a stop in the pivotal swing state of Ohio on Monday, saying the blueprint will create 800,000 jobs — just not in America. "Today, we found out, there's a new study out by a non-partisan economist that says Governor Romney's economic plan would in fact create 800,000 jobs," Obama said at a town hall-style event in Cincinnati. "There's only one problem. The jobs wouldn't be in America."

Trying to shift the presidential campaign narrative away from his personal finances and tenure at Bain Capital, Republican Mitt Romney will launch a fresh assault this week accusing President Obama of political cronyism at the expense of middle-class workers... Obama campaign officials see this as a weak line of attack, in part because, they said, Romney played favorites by steering tax breaks to some companies over others as governor of Massachusetts.

"And, if you asked me what is the one thing that has frustrated me most over the last four years, it's not the hard work, it's not the enormity of the decisions, it's not the pace, it is that I haven't been able to change the atmosphere here in Washington to reflect the decency and common sense of ordinary people - Democrats, Republicans and independents - who I think just want to see their leadership solve problems," he told CBS' Charlie Rose in an interview that aired this morning. "And there's enough blame to go around for that."

The Mitt Romney campaign released a new television ad Sunday using the words of pundits and journalists to knock President Barack Obama for running negative ads. “[W]hen the president was elected, he talked about hope and change," CBS's Bob Schieffer says in the first clip. "Whatever happened to hope and change? Now it seems he’s just coming right out of the box with these old-fashioned, negative ads."

President Obama and his campaign barnstormed through Virginia on Saturday, relentlessly hammering away at Mitt Romney’s business record and releasing a mocking new ad.

It wasn't just Obama, though, pushing the presumptive Republican nominee to put the issue of his tax returns to rest. "There is no whining in politics," chided John Weaver, a veteran Republican strategist. "Stop demanding an apology, release your tax returns."

A 29-year-old staffer in the Obama for America campaign has died after collapsing in President Obama's Chicago headquarters Friday. Alex Okrent worked in the campaign's paid media department, which handles advertising.

Citing a poll conducted by Global Strategy Group and Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group in the battleground states of Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida, Priorities USA claimed that more voters say Romney’s experience at Bain makes them less likely to vote for him, 37% to 27%. Claiming that its own anti-Bain ads are working, Priorities USA pointed out that in the 11 markets they’ve advertised in within those five states, Obama leads Romney by eight points (49% to 41%) compared with a three-point lead in those without the ads (46% to 43%).

Mitt Romney is continuing his air war on President Obama's campaign tactics with a new ad using the Democrat's own words against him. Instead of using Hillary Rodham Clinton's words against Obama in 2008 to underscore the point, the latest Romney ad deploys Obama's own words from his acceptance speech in Denver four years ago.