US Presidential Elections: Slipping in the polls, Romney looks to shift direction of race - Kasie Hunt and Ken Thomas

With momentum on President Barack Obama’s side, Mitt Romney sought Monday to explain to voters more clearly what he would do as president as he looked to right his struggling campaign and ease worries in Republican circles about its state seven weeks before Election Day.

“My plan is to help the middle class,” the Republican nominee says in a new TV ad in which he promises to cut the deficit, balance the budget, reduce spending and help small business. Also, he adds: “We’ll add 12 million new jobs in four years.”

It was one of two new commercials he was launching in the most competitive states – the other assails Mr. Obama as bad for middle-class families – while also re-focusing his campaign appearances on his previously released five-point economic plan and starting a new effort to try to narrow Mr. Obama’s advantage with Hispanic voters.

Paul J. Quirk, a U.S. citizen and lifelong resident until he joined the University of British Columbia as the Phil Lind Chair in U.S. Politics and Representation noted: “Romney shot himself in the foot last week, then re-loaded, and shot the other foot. First, he said he would keep parts of Obama's health care reform. After saying thousands of times that he would repeal Obamacare, with no qualifications, he offended conservatives and left his position on health care badly confused.

“Second, he attacked Obama for a statement on the Libyan crisis that a) most people will approve of and b) Obama himself did not even make. He appeared to many observers too political and too reckless for the presidency.

“Both episodes provide material for Democratic advertising and for embarrassing challenges during the presidential debates. The sad thing about all this, from a Republican standpoint, is that desperation is not yet warranted. Romney is throwing ‘Hail Marys,’ very likely to be intercepted, in the third quarter of the game.”

"Bottom line he just isn't Presidential material".

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