Are pleas by Obama hindering the push?

As President Barack Obama re-engages on immigration reform, some of his allies disagree about how big of a role he should take in the debate on Capitol Hill.

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In Thursday remarks at the White House, Obama reiterated his position that "common sense" immigration reform is a politically popular way to "grow the economy and shrink our deficits" while securing the U.S. border, modernizing the visa system and offering a pathway to citizenship for most of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who have already settled in the United States.

Urging Congress to act this year, Obama also made it clear that he prefers the bipartisan approach of the Democratic- controlled Senate, which on June 27 passed a comprehensive package that has been languishing in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. House Democrats have offered similar legislation, but Obama added that "if House Republicans have new and different, additional ideas for how we should move forward, then we want to hear them."

The House has been working on its own series of smaller immigration-related bills but has yet to pass any. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has signaled that action on immigration is still possible, and several GOP lawmakers have indicated that they are exploring possible approaches to addressing the legal status of the undocumented population.

Obama's remarks earned applause in the immigrant community, but some observers said they want the president to move beyond prodding Congress and use his executive authority to halt deportations.

Other reform supporters, particularly in the business world, worry that his high-profile stand risks further alienating conservative House Republicans, many of whom are still nursing bruised egos from the recent government shutdown and debt-ceiling fight.

Immigration-reform advocates have considered 2013 their best opportunity to pass a comprehensive bill since the last serious effort failed in 2007, but time is running out.

The push is on to finish immigration reform in the next few months because by early 2014, Congress will be overshadowed by midterm-election politics. Those partisan atmospherics make bipartisan cooperation less likely, although some analysts and reform supporters are hopeful there may be another window of opportunity once primary-election ballots are set and Republican incumbents don't need to worry about challenges from conservatives who oppose "amnesty" for undocumented immigrants.

"It doesn't make sense to have 11 million people who are in this country illegally without any incentive or any way for them to come out of the shadows, get right with the law, meet their responsibilities and permit their families then to move ahead," Obama said during his speech at the White House, where he was joined by Vice President Joe Biden and reform supporters.

"It's not smart," Obama said. "It's not fair. It doesn't make sense. We have kicked this particular can down the road for too long."

Growing support

For most of this year, Obama has kept his distance from the legislative action, giving the Senate's bipartisan "Gang of Eight" of four Democrats and four Republicans the time they needed to craft their bill. The group included Republican Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Because of the delicate political dynamics of the House, Obama's increasing presence in the immigration debate gives anxiety to some pro-reform business leaders who traditionally have a good rapport with Republicans. The fear is that some GOP partisans who might otherwise support reform could balk if they feel Obama is muscling them.

"It hurts more than it helps," said Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who, with other business leaders, will travel to Washington next week to lobby lawmakers to pass immigration reform. "We understand and we appreciate that this is a big issue for him. It's a big issue for the country. This would be a good time for the House of Representatives to really pass out its vision for immigration reform."

In his Thursday statement, Obama acknowledged that his support could provoke new antagonism from his conservative critics, but he emphasized that immigration reform -- the top domestic priority of Obama's second term -- has broad-based political appeal and historically has attracted support from Republicans, including former President George W. Bush.

"I know that there are some folks in this town who are primed to think, 'Well, if Obama is for it, then I'm against it,'" Obama said. "But I'd remind everybody that my Republican predecessor was also for it when he proposed reforms like this almost a decade ago, and I joined with 23 Senate Republicans back then to support that reform. I'd remind you that this reform won more than a dozen Republican votes in the Senate in June."

He added: "I'm not running for office again. I just believe this is the right thing to do."

One leading national champion of immigration reform dismissed the idea that Obama should defer to House Republicans who dislike him.

Frank Sharry, executive director of the pro- reform organization America's Voice and an expert in immigration politics, said the restraint that Obama has shown thus far is testament to how badly the president wants a bill passed.

For example, Obama has refrained from trying to punish Republicans politically for holding it up, he said.

"Come on, he's the president. He gets to use the bully pulpit to try to set the agenda," Sharry said. "Obviously, it's only going to happen if the House Republicans decide to do it. Everybody in the world knows that everybody wants to get it done except for the divided House GOP. They have to decide whether they want to be the party of responsible governance or the party of confrontational nihilism. So, it's their call."

Another immigrant advocate called on Obama to show more leadership by curtailing his administration's "outrageous number of deportations," which affect many people who could benefit from reform, although such a step also could rile House Republicans.

Some GOP lawmakers already have suggested they don't trust the Obama administration to properly enforce any new immigration or border- security laws that might be passed.

"From our perspective, the president is definitely a big stakeholder and player in getting immigration reform done," said Cristina Jimenez, managing director of the immigrant-youth network United We Dream.

"We don't believe that for the president to step up and push Congress to get this done undermines the efforts," she said. "But we also believe that the president himself could do more."

Limited influence

Other observers, including Arizona's two members of the Senate Gang of Eight, suggested that Obama's powers of persuasion probably are limited with regard to many House Republicans.

"I don't know if it helps or hurts, to be honest with you," McCain said Tuesday when asked about a more active Obama role. "I think that the Republican Party understands the majority of Americans want this issue resolved. There are many members of Congress that represent districts where the majority do not support immigration reform, and we understand and respect that."

John J. "Jack" Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, also said rank-and-file House Republicans are more likely to take their cues on immigration reform from their conservative base than from Obama or even the national GOP leaders who want to improve the party's image with Latino voters.

"For the average House Republican, the Number 1 concern is his or her own district, and most Republicans are not getting much clamor for the liberalization of immigration laws in their own districts," Pitney said. "You can argue that it's in the party's long-term interest to address the issue, but 'long-term interest' doesn't get a vote in primaries and general elections."

Flake, who served 12 years in the House before moving to the Senate, said time appears to be immigration reform's biggest enemy. "The president saying it isn't going to make it happen," Flake said. "Let's face it: The calendar is going to be tough this year."

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House Republicans, Obama seek end to budget stalemate

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON Negotiations to end the government shutdown and avert default continued Friday as Senate Republicans huddled with President Barack Obama privately to discuss a pathway out of the impasse.

POLL: MOST FAULT REPUBLICANS FOR SHUTDOWN

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed more people blaming Republicans than President Barack Obama for the shutdown, 53percent to 31percent. Just 24percent viewed the Republican Party positively, compared with 39 percent with positive views of the Democratic Party.

"The question is: Can you get something in the next 72 hours? The president seems committed to being engaged in it, and he hadn't been up to this point, so I'm optimistic," said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., after the meeting.

House and Senate Republicans appear to be pursuing different negotiations with the White House, and it is unclear whether either proposal can win over Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is leading congressional Democrats in the negotiations.

Democrats have resisted GOP efforts, led by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to engage in budget talks until the government is reopened and the debt ceiling is increased before the Oct.17 deadline.

Day 11

The shutdown, in its 11th day Friday, began when Republicans demanded a delay or defunding of the Affordable Care Act in exchange for their votes to keep the government running.

The funding discussion has now snowballed to include a plan to increase the U.S. borrowing limit so the nation can continue to pay its bills on time. Republicans have since moved on from focusing solely on the health care law to seeking broader concessions on fiscal issues.

Congress will continue to work through the weekend. House Republicans will huddle Saturday morning and the Senate is scheduled to vote on a key procedural hurdle to move ahead with a 15-month increase in the debt ceiling with no conditions attached.

House Republicans have offered a short-term path to resolve the shutdown and avert default in order to reach a broader budget deal, while Senate Republicans appear to be mulling longer-term solutions in order to reach an agreement.

Stopgap measure

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is working with senators in both parties on a budget framework that includes a six-month stopgap funding bill and suspends the debt ceiling through January. The extensions would give Congress breathing room to reach a broader budget agreement.

"I believe that still gives us plenty of leverage to work out a long-term fiscal plan, but it removes the threat of an immediate default," Collins said Friday.

Multiple Senate Republicans said the conversation with the president did not include the competing House proposal that would increase the debt ceiling for six weeks.

Republicans have also proposed a short-term stopgap spending bill to reopen the government after Obama rejected their proposal for only a debt ceiling increase.

Senate Republicans seem eager to resolve the impasse. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., cited a "devastating" NBC/WSJ polled released Thursday that showed the Republican Party's favorability at an all-time low. "I know that they're reading the polls," McCain said of House Republicans.

Copyright 2013 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Obama Must Walk Fine Line as Congress Takes Up Agenda

WASHINGTON — The days ahead could be decisive ones for the main pieces of President Obama’s second-term agenda: long-range deficit reduction, gun safety and changes to immigration law.

With Congress back this week from a recess, bipartisan groups of senators who have been negotiating about immigration and gun violence are due to unveil their agreements, though prospects for a gun deal are in question as the emotional impact of the massacre in Newtown, Conn., has faded and the National Rifle Association has marshaled opposition. And on Wednesday, Mr. Obama will send his annual budget to Capitol Hill intended as a compromise offer, though early signs suggest that Republican leaders have little interest in reviving talks.

Members of both parties say Mr. Obama faces a conundrum with his legislative approach to a deeply polarized Congress. In the past, when he has stayed aloof from legislative action, Republicans and others have accused him of a lack of leadership; when he has gotten involved, they have complained that they could not support any bill so closely identified with Mr. Obama without risking the contempt of conservative voters.

Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, called this predicament Mr. Obama’s “Catch-22.” And Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, said he had often seen it at work since 2010 while negotiating with Republican lawmakers to reach a long-term budget agreement.

At times, Mr. Warner said, Republicans would urge him to get Mr. Obama more involved, saying, “Gosh, Warner, we’ve got to have the president.” Other times, he said, the same lawmakers would plead otherwise, saying, “If the president comes out for this, you know it is going to kill us in the House.”

“Everybody wants him involved to the right degree at the right moment,” Mr. Warner said, “but not anytime before or after.”

The challenge for Mr. Obama became evident as soon as he took office, when Republicans almost unanimously opposed his economic stimulus package even as the recession was erasing nearly 800,000 jobs a month. The author Robert Draper opened his recent book about the House, “Do Not Ask What Good We Do,” with an account from Republican leaders who dined together on the night of Mr. Obama’s 2009 inauguration and agreed that the way to regain power was to oppose whatever he proposed.

Though Mr. Obama was able to prevail over Republican opposition in his first two years as president because Democrats had majorities in the House and the Senate, that changed when Republicans won control of the House in 2010, giving them a brake to apply to the president’s agenda.

Other than the stimulus experience in early 2009, the moment that most captured that polarization for the White House occurred a year later. In early 2010 Republican senators, including the minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, demanded that Mr. Obama endorse bipartisan legislation to create a deficit-reduction commission. But when he finally did so, they voted against the bill, killing it.

Now the president’s three pending priorities are shaping up as test cases for how he and Republicans will work together — or not — in his second term.

Each measure — on the budget, guns and immigration — in its own way illustrates the fine line that Mr. Obama must walk to succeed even with national opinion on his side. Privately, the White House is optimistic only about the prospects for an immigration bill, which would create a path to citizenship for about 11 million people in the country illegally.

That is because an immigration compromise is the only one that Republicans see as being in their own interests, given their party’s unpopularity with the fast-growing Latino electorate. In contrast, most Republicans see little advantage in backing gun legislation, given hostility toward it in their states or in districts throughout the South and the West and in rural areas. A budget compromise would require agreeing to higher taxes, which are anathema to conservative voters, in exchange for Mr. Obama’s support for the reductions in Medicare and Social Security that they want.

Yet even on immigration, many Republicans are weighing their party’s long-term interests in supporting a compromise against their own short-term arguments for opposing one: antipathy remains deep in conservative districts to any proposal that would grant citizenship. That calculation also holds for Republicans planning to seek the 2016 presidential nomination.

Against this backdrop, Mr. Obama early on outlined elements that he wanted in the immigration and gun measures. Then he purposely left the drafting to Congress. Senior aides, mainly the chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, and the deputy chief of staff, Rob Nabors, check in daily with senators. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. stays in touch with his former Senate colleagues about the gun bill talks.

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Truman and Obama

My Sunday column on President Obama’s foreign policy synthesis (as manifested in the nominations of Chuck Hagel and John Brennan) argued that he presently “enjoys more trust — and with it, more latitude — on foreign policy than any Democrat since Harry Truman.” Daniel Larison calls this invocation of Truman a “strange anachronism,” and elaborates:

It was Truman’s foreign policy mistakes, both perceived and real, that helped the Republicans to end their two decades out of power and made the Republicans a credible alternative for governing for the first time since the 1920s. Truman’s expansion of containment doctrine into a policy to be pursued globally had long-lasting, pernicious effects on U.S. foreign policy that would last until the end of the Cold War. Truman left office with approval ratings worse than the lowest ratings of George W. Bush, and rightly so. It was only much later that Truman’s reputation was rehabilitated …

The point here is that Truman’s last years in office didn’t include his being widely trusted on foreign policy, but rather just the opposite.

Quite so! But Obama isn’t in his last years in office yet, and I had in mind the Truman of 1948 rather than the Truman of 1952 — the pre-Korean War Truman, that is, whose early Cold War strategy enjoyed strong bipartisan support, to the frustration of more left-wing figures like Henry Wallace and the bafflement of his Republican opponents. The parallels are imperfect, but there are interesting echoes of the divergent Republican responses to Truman’s foreign policy positioning — from the Arthur Vandenbergs who lent it a bipartisan sheen, to the rollback advocates who decided that containment amounted to appeasement, to the old guard non-interventionists who opposed the new Cold War architecture outright — in the ways that different kinds of Republicans, from realists to neoconservatives to non-interventionists, have struggled to figure out what to say about Obama’s approach to war and peace. (Robert Gates or Colin Powell or Chuck Hagel might be Vandenberg in this analogy, John McCain might be John Foster Dulles, and Rand Paul, I suppose, would play the part of Robert Taft.) And there are parallels, too, between the role foreign policy played in the 1948 campaign — as a secondary issue that nonetheless probably helped Truman’s cause, mostly because his opponent wasn’t sure when to agree with the incumbent and when to out-hawk him — and the role it played in the election season we’ve just experienced. (In this area, as in others, the Tom Dewey-as-Mitt Romney analogy pretty much writes itself.)

I should have been clearer about which phase of the Truman era I had in mind, and while I’m more sympathetic to his record than Larison, I agree that his once-underrated administration has been overrated by his subsequent rehabilitators. But for a time, Truman did occupy the foreign policy center in a way that that few Democrats have managed since. And the fact that his credibility crumbled in his second term, when our push to reunify Korea turned into a war with Mao’s China, dovetails with my column’s larger point — which was that Obama’s foreign policy is still a work in progress, and that the final judgment on his record will probably look very different after another four years of watching his strategic choices play themselves out.

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Obama vows swift results on deficit, border if he wins

President Barack Obama, facing criticism that he has failed to offer a vision for a potential second term, has begun sketching out his agenda with greater specificity in recent days, including a pledge to solve the nation's intractable budget problems within "the first six months."

In an interview made public Wednesday, Obama said he would pursue a "grand bargain" with Republicans to tame the national debt and would quickly follow that with a push to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.

With less than two weeks until Election Day, Obama chose to highlight two issues that have bedeviled him during his presidency: the debt, which has soared past $16 trillion on his watch, and immigration legislation, which never got off the launching pad over the past three years. Both are politically significant, with the debt a concern among independent voters and immigration important to the Hispanics who could decide whether Obama carries swing states such as Colorado and Nevada.

The interview, conducted Tuesday with the editor and publisher of the Des Moines Register, the largest newspaper in Iowa, also marked an unusual moment in the president's dealings with the news media.

Obama had initially insisted that the exchange, which he conducted by phone from a stop in Florida, be off the record. Then on Wednesday, his campaign abruptly decided to release a transcript after the newspaper's editor, Rick Green, wrote a blog post calling the interview terms a "disservice" to voters. Obama is seeking the influential paper's endorsement.

The transcript gave a surprising glimpse of Obama as political pundit, gaming out timetables and calculations for his dealings with Capitol Hill Republicans. He predicted, for instance, that an expectedly poor showing by challenger Mitt Romney among Hispanics would put pressure on GOP lawmakers to ease their opposition to an immigration overhaul that offers a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

"Since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt," Obama said at one point. "Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community."

With polls in swing states showing the race tightening, Obama appears to be shifting away from a strategy dominated by attacks on his opponent to one that includes a rationale for skeptical voters to re-elect him.

The Obama campaign is distributing brochures that repackage his proposals to hire more teachers, promote manufacturing and raise taxes on the wealthy.

Aides said the push to define the president's second term also includes direct mail and a new 60-second TV ad featuring Obama looking into the camera and laying out his views on manufacturing, energy and other issues. "Read my plan," he says.

At the top of the priority list: a promise to forge a bipartisan compromise that reduces rampant government borrowing and makes long-postponed decisions about taxes and spending. In the interview, Obama called a budget deal "one of the best things we can do for the economy."

"We're going to be in a position where, I believe, in the first six months, we are going to solve that big piece of business," Obama said. "It will probably be messy. It won't be pleasant. But I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain that essentially I've been offering to the Republicans for a very long time, which is $2.50 worth of cuts for every dollar in taxes, and work to reduce the costs of our health-care programs."

Obama offered no details of how he would approach negotiations with congressional Republicans. But with Washington facing a January deadline to undo more than $500 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts next year, Obama said, "There's going to be a forcing mechanism to deal with what is the central ideological argument in Washington right now, and that is: How much government do we have, and how do we pay for it?"

Republicans reacted with a yawn to the news that Obama is ready to reengage on a grand bargain if he wins the election.

They noted that his proposal for a cuts-to-taxes ratio of $2.50 to $1, embodied in his most recent budget request, was roundly rejected in both the House and Senate.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Romney Has Conciliatory Remarks on Obama and Health Overhaul

3:09 p.m. | Updated Mitt Romney said Sunday that he would retain elements of President Obama’s health care overhaul, blamed Republicans as much as Democrats for the “mistake” of agreeing to automatic cuts in military spending to avoid a fiscal crisis and acknowledged that Mr. Obama’s national security strategy has made America in “some ways safer.”

The remarks, made in an interview on the NBC News program “Meet The Press,” seemed to mark the emergence of a less openly partisan, more general-election-oriented Republican nominee, who is intent on appealing to middle-of-the-road voters who have not yet made up their minds. At one point, Mr. Romney said that a speech on Thursday by the country’s last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, had “elevated” the party’s convention in Charlotte, N.C.

When the show’s host, David Gregory, asked Mr. Romney what elements of Mr. Obama’s health care program he would maintain, Mr. Romney said he would still require that insurance companies cover those with pre-existing conditions, just as the president’s law has.

“I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform,” Mr. Romney said, while emphasizing that he planned to replace the president’s plan with his own. “There are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.”

Mr. Romney, whose standing in several national polls improved slightly after the Republican convention in Tampa, said, “I’m in a better spot than I was before the convention.”

“People got to see Ann and hear our story,” Mr. Romney said, referring to this wife. “And the result of that is I’m better known, for better or for worse.”

With the Federal Reserve contemplating actions to stimulate the economy, Mr. Romney registered his disapproval, saying that he did not think that “easing monetary policy is going to make a significant difference in the job market right now.”

Mr. Romney, who has criticized the president over the rising federal debt, said he would seek to balance the budget in 8 to 10 years, perhaps after his own potential presidency would end. Any attempt to do so in a first term, Mr. Romney said, would have “a dramatic impact on the economy — too dramatic.”

Mr. Romney said he disagreed with a compromise made last year by the White House and Congressional Republicans that called for automatic cuts to military spending as a way to force a deal on deficit reduction.

“I thought it was a mistake on the part of the White House to propose it. I think it was a mistake for Republicans to go along with it,” he said.

The interview provided another forum in which Mr. Romney was questioned about the omission in his convention speech of any mention of the war in Afghanistan. Mr. Romney seemed defensive when Mr. Gregory asked him about criticism from the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard — and from others on both sides of the ideological divide — ­ that he did not speak about the conflict in accepting his party’s nomination at the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla.

“The Weekly Standard took you to task in your convention speech for not mentioning the war in Afghanistan one time,” Mr. Gregory asked. “Was that a mistake, with so much sacrifice in two wars over the period of this last decade?”

Mr. Romney answered, “You know, I find it interesting that people are curious about mentioning words in a speech as opposed to policy,” noting that he had discussed the war in Afghanistan just before the convention, in a speech to the American Legion. “I went to the American Legion,” he said, “and spoke with our veterans there and described my policy as it relates to Afghanistan and other foreign policy and our military.”

When Mr. Gregory noted that his American Legion address did not have the same large audience as the convention speech ­ — “tens of millions of people” — Mr. Romney replied: “You know, what I’ve found is that wherever I go, I am speaking to tens of millions of people. Everything I say is picked up by you and by others, and that’s the way it ought to be.”

In leaving the war out of his convention address, Mr. Romney seemed to have left an opening for President Obama, who said in his own speech: “Tonight, we pay tribute to the Americans who still serve in harm’s way. We are forever in debt to a generation whose sacrifice has made this country safer and more respected. We will never forget you.”

Pressed on his social views, Mr. Romney reiterated that he did not think that taxpayers should have to pay for abortions and that he wanted Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Reminded that he had once called himself a “severe” conservative, Mr. Romney seemed to play down that description. “I am as conservative as the Constitution,” he said.

In an appearance in Melborune, Fla., Sunday, President Obama, picking up where former President Bill Clinton left off, said that the budget proposals offered by Mitt Romney and Paul D. Ryan do not add up.

The president was quick to jump on appearances by his Republican rivals on the Sunday morning talk shows, in which they were asked separately what loopholes they would close to pay for their proposed tax cuts. Neither of the men answered the question.

The relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton started off rocky — Mr. Obama, after all, ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008. But after Mr. Clinton’s ringing endorsement of Mr. Obama in a well-received Democratic convention speech on Thursday, the president mentioned his Democratic predecessor at every stop on a bus tour of Florida over the weekend.

“President Clinton told us the single thing missing from my opponents’ proposal was arithmetic,” Mr. Obama told a rally here, to a burst of applause.

“When my opponents were asked about it today,” Mr. Obama said, “it was like 2 plus 1 equals 5.”

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this post misstated a subject Mitt Romney addressed during his convention speech. He did not mention conflict in Afghanistan.

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Obama Campaign Says It Beat Romney in Fund-Raising for August

12:51 a.m. | Updated The Obama campaign announced early Monday that it had raised $114 million in August, saying it had brought in more than the Romney campaign for the first time since April.

That number was released just after Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee said that their campaign had raised more than $111.6 million in August, leaving the candidate and his party with about $168.5 million in cash at the beginning of September.

Both campaigns have said they hope to raise more than three-quarters of a billion dollars, amounts that would shatter previous records for presidential spending. Neither campaign is accepting public funds for the general election campaign.

Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, said in a statement: “The key to fighting back against the special interests writing limitless checks to support Mitt Romney is growing our donor base, and we did substantially in the month of August.”

The Obama campaign said on Twitter that 98 percent of donations in August were for $250 or less. The Republican effort raised about $34.6 million in donations of less than $250, the campaign said, about a third of the total — a better showing with small donors than Mr. Romney has had in the past.

In a statement, Spencer Zwick, Mr. Romney’s finance chairman, and Reince Priebus, the R.N.C. chairman, said: “Americans are not better off than they were four years ago and they are looking for a change of leadership. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are offering bold solutions to our country’s problems – that is why we are seeing such tremendous support from donors across the country.”

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<nbsp/> Clinton states his case for a 2nd Obama term

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — CHARLOTTE, N.C. Former President Bill Clinton wowed the crowd at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday with a full-throated defense of President Barack Obama's job record during a dramatic speech that heaped ridicule on the Republicans' rationale for ousting Obama.

Clinton, who occupied the White House and handily won re-election during an economic-boom period in the 1990s, formally offered Obama's name for renomination in the latest twist in a relationship that has not always been so friendly. The 42nd president -- whose wife, Hillary Clinton, gave Obama his stiffest Democratic competition in the 2008 primaries -- delivered a powerful address that Obama may find difficult to top.

Obama will formally accept his party's nomination today, the same day that former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona is expected to lead the convention in the Pledge of Allegiance. It would be Giffords' highest-profile public appearance since a nearly fatal assassination attempt almost two years ago during a constituent event outside Tucson.

Clinton's 48-minute primetime remarks, which Obama listened to from backstage at Time Warner Cable Arena, praised the president's handling of the economy and hailed him as the man who "stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery" and who is still "committed to constructive cooperation."

Clinton acknowledged that Obama is not satisfied with the economic situation but stressed that Americans are better off than when he took office during the recent recession, which he blamed on the Republicans.

"In Tampa, the Republican argument against the president's re-election was actually pretty simple and pretty snappy," said Clinton, referring to last week's Republican National Convention, where former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was nominated for president. "It went something like this: We left him a total mess, he hasn't finished cleaning it up yet, so fire him and put us back in."

The case for Obama's second term is stronger, Clinton said. "Here it is: He inherited a deeply damaged economy. He put a floor under the crash. He began the long hard road to recovery and laid the foundation for a more modern, more well-balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses and lots of new wealth for the innovators."

Clinton's speech preceded the traditional convention roll call in which delegates from Arizona and other states announced their support for their party's renomination of Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, whose acceptance speeches have been moved indoors because of weather concerns.

Arizona's delegation, which consists of 80 delegates and six alternates, were joined for the roll call by CC Goldwater, granddaughter of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, a five-term Arizona Republican and 1964 GOP presidential nominee.

"My grandfather wouldn't recognize the Republican Party of today," said an audibly nervous Goldwater, who endorsed Obama over Sen. John McCain in 2008 and is supporting Democrat Richard Carmona in this year's Arizona Senate race. "Barry Goldwater believed in personal freedoms, the right to privacy and a woman's right to choose. On behalf of the Arizona delegation, I want to cast 77 votes for Arizona for Barack Obama."

Other high-profile speakers on the convention's second night included House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Massachusetts; and Sandra Fluke, a recent law-school graduate whose advocacy for contraception coverage by insurance companies prompted conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh to call her a "slut."

Giffords, the three-term Arizona Democrat whose ongoing recovery from a gunshot wound to the head has inspired the nation, and her retired NASA astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, were sighted in Charlotte on Wednesday, and news of her likely appearance electrified the convention as it spread from delegate to delegate. Giffords resigned from Congress on Jan. 25 to focus on her rehabilitation.

The tightly choreographed convention was knocked off script briefly Wednesday as Democratic delegates amended their recently adopted 2012 party platform to include a reference to God and to acknowledge that "Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel."

The original platform, which delegates endorsed Tuesday, drew criticism for the omissions. The changes were made only after multiple voice votes and over loud dissent.

If Obama wins a second term, he will become only the second Democrat to do so since Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the first since Clinton was re-elected in 1996.

Clinton asked delegates and television viewers to choose what kind of a country they want to live in.

"If you want a winner-take-all, you're-on-your-own society, you should support the Republican ticket," Clinton said. "But if you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibility -- a we're-all-in-this-together society -- you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden."

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, who is attending the convention, said he hopes Clinton's message of compromise resonates. Clinton stressed that in the real world, compromise and cooperation trump the "politics of constant conflict." Stanton noted that Clinton for much of his presidency had to deal with a GOP Congress and held him up as an example of someone who could work with his opponents.

"Pretty much wherever Bill Clinton goes, he's the big star," Stanton said. "Bill Clinton is very popular in America today. He is very popular among both parties. I think that was harkening back to an era when there was bipartisan agreement. And Bill Clinton was a great messenger: No one could speak to an audience of 15,000 people but make you feel like he was speaking just to you, individually, like Bill Clinton."

In another development, convention organizers announced Wednesday that Obama's acceptance speech would be moved from the outdoor Bank of America Stadium, where the NFL's Carolina Panthers play, to the Time Warner Cable Arena, a smaller, in-door facility that is home to the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats and was host to the first two days of the convention.

Steve Kerrigan, the Democratic National Convention Committee CEO, said forecast thunderstorms forced the venue change, although the decision came amid speculation that Democrats were struggling to fill the stadium's more than 65,000 seats.

On Tuesday, Ben LaBolt, the Obama-Biden campaign's national press secretary, told reporters that the plan was to proceed at Bank of America Stadium rain or shine. He denied that the campaign would have any problem finding enough people to fill the seats.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Column: Obama takes aim at Romney

Cal Thomas is a conservative columnist. Bob Beckel is a liberal Democratic strategist. But as longtime friends, they can often find common ground on issues that lawmakers in Washington cannot.

By H. Darr Beiser,, USA TODAY

Head of the Democratic National Committee: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida tests the podium Tuesday in Charlotte, in preparation for the first day of the party's convention.

By H. Darr Beiser,, USA TODAY

Head of the Democratic National Committee: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida tests the podium Tuesday in Charlotte, in preparation for the first day of the party's convention.

Today:Obama takes the stage

Bob: Gallup reports that Mitt Romney had the smallest polling increase from any presidential convention since 1984. Romney's address to the GOP convention in Tampa, according to Gallup, was the least well-received speech since Bob Dole in 1996. Romney wanted this election to be a referendum on Barack Obama, but because Romney failed to close the sale on his own candidacy, he's given Obama an opening to make Romney an issue.

Cal: Nice try at those DNC talking points, Bob. Here in North Carolina, where I am spending the week with your political brethren, the new Elon University/Charlotte Observer Poll shows Romney leading President Obama 47% to 43% in the state. But enough about polls. Last week, we agreed on what Romney needed to say to the GOP convention and those watching on TV. Now, what do you think the president should say in his speech tonight?

Bob: In his acceptance speech, Romney did not harshly attack the president, which I thought was a good strategy. He let others, including Paul Ryan, do his dirty work for him. Speaker after speaker at the Democratic convention has attacked Romney for proposing warmed over policies from "the last century" and his running mate as radical and dangerous. Obama should do something similar, and to the extent he mentions Romney, it should be to compare the president's policies, popular or not, with Romney's lack of a single new idea.

Cal: The "last century" with its economic booms and defeat of communism in Russia and fascism in Germany is looking better all the time. I agree the president has a record. I anticipate the "failure" of the Democratic convention will be that Democrats will offer more of the same failed solutions. The president made some spectacular promises four years ago, few of which he has kept. It's going to be very difficult to defend that record, given the high expectations he generated, especially on unemployment, which he pledged the stimulus would hold to under 8%. Even Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley admitted to Bob Schieffer last Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation that America is no better off today than it was four years ago.

Bob: My cardinal rule in politics is to effectively manage expectations. The goal of any campaign should be to keep expectations in the right place so the candidate's strengths can exceed expectations and in the process minimize his weaknesses. If any president has ever suffered from high expectations, it's Barack Obama.

Cal: That was not the Republicans' fault. He almost single-handedly created those expectations with all of that lowering of the oceans business and other messianic talk.

Columns

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.

Bob: I agree. Obama has himself to blame after raising expectations during his extraordinarily effective campaign in 2008. He made promises that were nearly impossible to fulfill, particularly about changing the tone in Washington. He did not expect to be facing a Republican Party that had moved radically to the right and had no interest in working with President Obama.

Cal: Whatever happened to the Democratic Leadership Council, which Bill Clinton headed? These were moderate Democrats who were willing to compromise to move the ball forward. Look at the convention lineup of speakers. There isn't a pro-life, smaller-government, lower-taxes, less-spending, traditional-marriage speaker among the lot. The Democratic Party is now ruled exclusively by the hard left, and yet there are many Democrats who favor some, or all, of these moderate-to-conservative issues. Do you think the president in his speech tonight will have anything to say to these Democrats?

Bob: The DLC was a Clinton-driven organization that left the scene when he did. If you like radical speakers, Tampa was full of them last week. Back to the president's speech. I think Obama must address the expectations issue, and I know some people around him agree. As he told a CBS reporter, he failed "to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism."

Cal: It's a little late for that, don't you think?

Bob: No, I don't. For all his formidable skills as a campaigner and orator, Obama failed to tell the country why he was embarking on new directions in health care and why his stimulus package was necessary. He never sought to downplay the expectations of 2008 when he knew full well that they could not be met. Therefore, I think Obama needs to do a bit of mea culpa in his speech to let the voters know that he knows he hasn't met all their expectations, but that he is making every effort to do so.

Cal: A mea culpa doesn't fit his personality and will seem disingenuous. It would be like Madonna suddenly advocating modest dress. The public is cynical enough about politicians in both parties. The late comedian George Burns is supposed to have said, "Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made." Given the public's growing distrust of government, it is increasingly difficult to "fake sincerity." You've been a strategist. Should he attack Romney, or ignore him?

Bob: As I've mentioned, a little of both. When Obama talks about Romney, he should avoid talking about Bain Capital and Romney's refusal to release more of his tax returns. Those issues have been covered in his advertising and by others. Rather, Obama should point out that Romney is quick to raise all the problems facing America and has yet to offer solutions to solve them.

Cal: That's a fair point. As for Bain, Deroy Murdock wrote last week in the New York Post, "Bain's private-equity executives have enriched dozens of organizations and millions of individuals in the Democratic base — including some who scream most loudly for President Obama's re-election." So lay off Bain, Mr. President, and tell us if we're in for more of the same policies if you are re-elected.

Bob: Speaking of policies, even TheWall Street Journal panned Romney's speech because he offered no new policies beyond cutting taxes, increasing defense and, in a break with his running mate, Romney said he will protect Social Security and Medicare. This adds up to massive deficits and perhaps taxes on the middle class. It's no wonder so many economists laugh at Romney's warmed over trickle-down policies.

Cal: With the national debt climbing past $16 trillion, I'm glad you are suddenly concerned with debt, which is caused by overspending, not under-taxing. More and more voters don't trust either party to do what it says, but I think they'll give Republicans one more chance to rescue us from this financial sinking ship. If they fail, as we have written in a previous column, voters will keep tossing out incumbents until they get leaders who will do the necessary things to repair the economy.

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Michelle Obama closes opening night on softer note

CHARLOTTE – First lady Michelle Obama closed the first night of the Democratic National Convention on a warm-hearted, upbeat note. But it contrasted an evening filled with harsh salvos against Mitt Romney that blasted the challenger as out of touch with mainstream Americans.

By H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY

First lady Michelle Obama speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte on Tuesday.

By H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY

First lady Michelle Obama speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte on Tuesday.

After speakers from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to Newark (N.J.) Mayor Cory Booker blasted Romney and the Republican Party for everything from undermining the economic recovery to favoring the wealthy over the middle class, the first lady's speech was soft in tone. Yet it was strong in her belief that the country was better served by her husband's humble beginnings, "the guy who'd picked me up for our dates in a car that was so rusted out, I could actually see the pavement going by through a hole in the passenger side door … the guy whose proudest possession was a coffee table he'd found in a dumpster, and whose only pair of decent shoes was half a size too small."

The message — much like Ann Romney's speech at last week's GOP convention that revealed her husband's role as husband and father — was a charm offensive aimed at reminding voters not just where Obama came from, but his core values, accomplishments and plans for the next four years.

"I have seen firsthand that being president doesn't change who you are — no, it reveals who you are," Michelle Obama said. "Barack knows what it means when the middle class struggles. … He's lived it." Yet she also emphasized that unlike Romney, who became a multimillionaire through private equity firm Bain Capital, Obama had shunned opportunities for high-paying jobs for a life devoted to public service.

"I love that for Barack, there is no such thing as us and them," she said. "I love that even in the toughest moments where we are all sweatin' it, he just keeps moving forward with patience and wisdom and courage and grace. He reminds me that we're playing a long game here and eventually, we get there."

With the November election a virtual tossup and Obama's re-election bid crimped by an anemic economy and stubbornly high unemployment, most of the night's speakers were far less cordial. Many offered sharp contrasts between a Romney presidency and four more years of Obama — and who would better serve the middle class, women and minorities.

In an interview with USA TODAY aboard Air Force One, Obama telegraphed the party's mission this week: defending his record, attacking Romney and convincing voters that America is better off than it was four years ago. The central themes: Obama kept the economy from plunging into recession, bailed out the now-revived automobile industry, revamped health care, ended the war in Iraq and gave the orders to eliminate terrorist Osama bin Laden.

"Gov. Romney spent a lot of time talking about himself and he spent a lot of time talking about me. He didn't spend a lot of time talking about the American people and how their lives will get better," Obama told USA TODAY. "I guess their premise is that the American people will be convinced, if we just get rid of Obama, then somehow that will be enough."

San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro, a rising party star, delivered the keynote address, highlighting Obama's successes, "despite incredible odds and united Republican opposition."

He was less kind to Romney.

"Republicans tell us that if the most prosperous among us do even better, that somehow the rest of us will, too," Castro said. "Folks, we've heard that before. First, they called it 'trickle-down.' Then 'supply side.' Now it's 'Romney-Ryan.' Or is it 'Ryan-Romney.' Either way, their theory has been tested. It failed. Our economy failed. The middle class paid the price. Your family paid the price. Mitt Romney just doesn't get it."

The anti-Romney tone was set early, and often.

"If Mitt was Santa Claus, he'd fire the reindeer and outsource the elves," former Ohio governor Ted Strickland told a roaring crowd of delegates.

Democrats even turned to liberal icon Edward Kennedy— who died in 2009 — to blast Romney's shifting views, a criticism that has haunted the candidate. As part of a video tribute, clips from the Kennedy vs. Romney 1994 Senate race debate showed Kennedy schooling his challenger. "I am pro-choice. My opponent is multiple choice," Kennedy said in the clip.

The Romney campaign said rolling out the Kennedy clip was a low blow.

Reid delivered some of the evening's harshest comments.

"Today's Republican Party believes in two sets of rules: one for millionaires and billionaires, and another for the middle class," he said. "And this year, they've nominated the strongest proponent — the clearest beneficiary — of this rigged game: Mitt Romney."

Said Booker: "Our platform is about moving America and our economy forward. We must choose forward. We must be inclusive. We must choose growing together."

Obama campaigned in battleground state Virginia earlier Tuesday.

Republicans are "counting on you, maybe not to vote for Romney, but they're counting on you to feel discouraged," he told a crowd at Norfolk State University. "And they figure if you don't vote, then big oil will write our energy future, and insurance companies will write our health care plans, and politicians will dictate what a woman can or can't do when it comes to her own health. They're counting on you just to accept their version of things."

Obama is scheduled to make his party acceptance speech Thursday at the 74,000-seat outdoor Bank of America stadium. There's a 40% chance of rain showers. Obama spokesman Brent Colburn said severe weather, such as lightning, would push the event indoors.

Wherever it's held, the speech will provide a "road map" for Obama's plans to restore security to the hard-pressed middle class, campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

The president and aides have acknowledged that Democrats are likely to be outspent by Romney in key battleground states. So the three-day convention amounts to some much-needed PR.

"We've got some truth-telling to do," Virginia's U.S. Sen. Mark Warner told Florida delegates earlier Tuesday. "America is better off today than it was four years ago when this president took over."

Modesto Tico Valle, an Illinois delegate from Chicago, said the convention is key to Obama's re-election.

"Most definitely, President Obama must say loudly and strongly that we are much better off today than four years ago," said Valle, the 48-year-old CEO of Center on Halstead, an advocate organization for the lesbian, gay and transgender community. "The economy is slowly recovering from where it was when we got it, jobs are slowly coming back. There has been great progress made in LGBT and women's rights, among seniors and with health care. The choice is clear between Obama and the dark ages. He is the one that is moving us forward."

Democrats released a party platform for ratification Tuesday underscoring Obama's call for higher taxes on the wealthy and support for gay marriage. And Tuesday morning, the party made its case for Obama through U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren on morning TV talk shows. Warren, who is challenging first-term Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, conceded that many Americans have it tough, but said Obama offers the better vision going forward. "Republicans are not helping us get back," she said.

Republican GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, also making the talk-show rounds, continued to hammer Obama's record on the economy. "Four years into a presidency and it's 'incomplete'?" he asked referring to the "grade" Obama gave himself in an interview Monday. "The president is asking people just to be patient with him?"

Romney's campaign reinforced that message with a new Internet video answering Obama's statement that "there are always going to be bumps on the road to recovery." The video showcases a series of ordinary Americans who've lost their jobs saying, "I'm an American, not a bump in the road."

Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said many of the economic assumptions built into the Romney-Ryan budget plan just don't add up.

"I call it marathon math," Van Hollen told USA TODAY, referring to Ryan's claim that he once ran a marathon an hour faster than he did.

"If there's one thing you need to do on the budget committee, it's learn how to count," he said. "There's a lot of funny math in the Ryan budget."

There were small protests throughout the day Tuesday, with 13 arrests around the city, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

Ten were illegal immigrants who sat at an intersection near the Time Warner Cable Arena convention site and charged with impeding traffic. The group had completed a cross-country bus tour called the "Undocubus" — a play on their undocumented status — that originated in Phoenix and ended in Charlotte. They are trying to draw attention to harsh immigration laws in Arizona, Alabama and Georgia.

It was unclear Tuesday evening whether the 10 would be placed in deportation proceedings. The Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Department has an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to assist in identifying illegal immigrants. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police spokesman Rob Tufano said they would alert the sheriff's department of the arrests, but he did not know how the department would handle their cases.

Contributing: Gregory Korte, David Jackson, Alan Gomez, Catalina Camia, Martha T. Moore and John McAuliff in Charlotte; the Associated Press

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Romney again tops Obama in fundraising

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON For the third straight month, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party significantly trailed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the Republican Party in fundraising.

Recent polls

Washington: Obama +17 (SurveyUSA)

Indiana: Romney +16 (Rasmussen)

Romney's campaign on Monday reported a July haul of $101million with the Republican National Committee, compared to the $75million that Obama's campaign said it had brought in with the Democratic National Committee.

Romney also raised more cash than Obama in May and June.

The July fundraising reports came as Obama was set to raise at least $2.5 million at a pair of events in Connecticut.

GOP-aligned super PACs also are raising and spending tens of millions of dollars to defeat Obama on Nov. 6.

Romney was taking another day off the campaign trail while the president worked at the White House.

Romney's campaign announced that he will spend Saturday through Aug. 14 campaigning by bus through a different state each day. The trip opens in Virginia, hits North Carolina and Florida and ends next Tuesday in Ohio.

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Romney Team Outpaces Obama in Fund-Raising Again

Mr. Romney and the Republican National Committee took in $101.3 million in July, his campaign announced Monday, as Republican donors rallied behind their presumptive nominee with the national convention only a few weeks away. The president’s campaign announced on Twitter on Monday morning that his July fund-raising with the Democratic National Committee topped out at about $75 million — the third month in a row they have brought in less than the Republicans.

Mr. Obama’s team appears to have all but conceded the money race, deluging the president’s grass-roots supporters this summer with fund-raising e-mails and warning supporters of the financial advantage that the Republicans will hold going into the final months of the campaign.

“Make no mistake, we will be outspent,” a senior campaign official said during a conference call with reporters last month.

More detailed information about the July fund-raising, including how much the candidates themselves raised and how they spent their money, has not yet been released by the two candidates. All campaigns are required to report their fund-raising to the Federal Election Commission by Aug. 20.

But the Republican figure keeps Mr. Romney and his party on pace to bring in $800 million for the cycle, the target set by Mr. Romney’s team in April. Roughly a quarter of the Republicans’ haul, $25.7 million, came in donations under $250, as Mr. Romney worked to increase his appeal among small donors.

“Americans are clearly looking for a change in the White House,” Reince Priebus, the chairman of the R.N.C., said in a statement. “While President Obama claims that his economic plan ‘worked,’ the American people know that his policies haven’t worked and he has failed to fix our economy.”

Because Mr. Obama easily outraised Mr. Romney all of last year and early this year, the president does not need to beat Mr. Romney in the months ahead to bring in the roughly $750 million his team has said they wish to raise in this cycle.

But heavy spending on field organizers, technology and advertising — more than $400 million through the end of June — appears to have cost Mr. Obama the impressive cash advantage he once had. And Democratic-leaning “super PACs” have raised far less money than their Republican counterparts, forcing Mr. Obama to spend heavily on attack advertisements against Mr. Romney, even while conservative groups pummel him on the airwaves.

The Republicans have used the cash surge of the last two months to begin trying to match Mr. Obama’s field advantage, opening about 250 offices around the country, recruiting volunteers and hiring more than 600 staff members for the fall campaign. On Saturday, the R.N.C. announced that organizers had made their one millionth voter contact of the election cycle. The committee has also begun running general election advertisements, as Mr. Romney began doing in May.

The campaign, the Republican National Committee and a joint fund established by the Republicans to raise presidential campaign cash ended July with $185.9 million in cash on hand. They did not disclose what part of the money would end up in Mr. Romney’s campaign coffers, which can accept only $5,000 from each donor every election cycle, and how much would go to the R.N.C., which can accept more than 10 times that amount from each donor.

Mr. Obama did not disclose how much money his campaign and the D.N.C. have on hand.

The strong fund-raising puts renewed pressure on Mr. Obama to bring in more cash and suggests certainty that Mr. Romney will remain financially competitive with an incumbent whose fund-raising prowess has long been a hallmark.

Underscoring the campaign’s changed fortunes, Mr. Obama’s campaign is no longer announcing its fund-raising totals in lush videos featuring his senior staff or field workers. Instead, on Monday, not long after Mr. Romney made his announcement, Mr. Obama’s campaign put out its total in a brief message to his Twitter followers, thanking them for their money.

“Every bit helps,” the campaign wrote.

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Obama puts $46.7M into ads, outspends what he raised in June

WASHINGTON – Competing hard to retain the White House, President Obama spent more than he raised in June for the second month in a row as he unleashed a torrent of advertising attacking Republican rival Mitt Romney, new campaign finance reports show.

By John Raoux, AP

President Obama speaks at a campaign event last Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla.

By John Raoux, AP

President Obama speaks at a campaign event last Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla.

Romney and the Republican Party, however, outraised him and ended the month with more cash reserves than Obama and the Democratic National Committee for what polls indicate is a very tight race heading into this summer's political conventions.

Last month alone, Obama pumped $46.7 million into advertising — ranging from TV commercials in battleground states to Internet ads seeking donations. That's more than twice the $19.1 million Romney spent on advertising in June, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the reports filed late Friday to the Federal Election Commission.

He also made new investments in staff — with 779 people on his payroll in June, up from 703 a month earlier.

Romney nearly doubled his spending in June over the previous month and increased the size of his staff by 85% in a month's time. Even so, his reports show he ramped up to just 272 employees last month. Some key players in the operation, such as top Romney fundraiser Spencer Zwick, are not listed on the payroll. However, Zwick's Boston firm collected more than $833,000 last month in fundraising consulting fees.

Romney also saw an uptick in smaller donations.

Donations of $200 or less accounted for about 30% of all his receipts in June, up from 18% a month earlier. His campaign had boasted that it had collected more than $4 million in the 24 hours after the June 28 Supreme Court ruling that Obama's health care law was constitutional.

Smaller donors are crucial to campaigns because they can be tapped repeatedly for money before they hit the $5,000 contribution limit for primary and general elections.

Outside Republican groups also have maintained a formidable advantage over similar organizations created by Democrats. That gives Romney's allies the resources to run hard-hitting advertising against the president until Romney can tap into his substantial general-election accounts once his party's nominating convention concludes in early September.

Restore Our Future, a super PAC aiding Romney, raised $20.7 million in June — its best month yet and more than three times the $6.2 million collected by the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action super PAC.

Nearly half Restore Our Future's June haul — $10 million — came from casino mogul and billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam. But other wealthy Republicans wrote big checks, including Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, who gave $2 million, and Dallas real-estate developer Trammell Crow, who donated $500,000. Another $500,000 came from his holding company.

John Childs, the Florida-based CEO of a private-equity firm, donated $1 million to the pro-Romney super PAC and another $500,000 last month to American Crossroads. American Crossroads, a super PAC founded with help from GOP strategist Karl Rove, is spending more than $9.3 million on pro-Romney advertising this week in nine battleground states.

Seven-figure donors to the pro-Obama super PAC in June include actor Morgan Freeman, who gave $1 million, and Qualcomm's billionaire founder Irwin Mark Jacobs, who donated $2 million.

Contributing: Ray Locker

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Romney, GOP outraise Obama and Democrats again in June

WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney's announcement Monday that he and the Republican Party had outraised President Obama for the second month in a row and ended June with a whopping $160 million in cash reserves set off new alarms inside Obama's campaign.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in Washington last month.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in Washington last month.

Although Obama and Democrats raised $71 million in June, "we still got beat. Handily," Ann Marie Habershaw, the campaign's chief operating officer, said in an e-mail imploring supporters to give as little as $3. If Obama loses to Romney in November, she wrote, "it will be because we didn't close the gap enough when we had the chance."

Although the Obama campaign did not release its cash-on-hand total Monday, the Romney announcement shows a highly competitive battle for campaign money four months from the November election.

The $106 million raised by Romney and the Republican National Committee in June doesn't count proceeds from Romney's trio of high-profile weekend fundraisers at the homes of energy billionaire David Koch, financier Cliff Sobel and businessman Ronald Perelman on Long Island, N.Y.

Romney finance chairman Spencer Zwick said the GOP's fundraising advantage "is a statement from voters that they want a change of direction in Washington."

Romney's haul is a sign Republican donors are quickly coming to his aid, after he effectively secured the nomination in May, following a protracted primary battle. It also marks a setback for Obama, who broke fundraising records as a candidate in 2008, but has warned recently he could be the first sitting president to be outspent in his re-election. In addition to Romney's growing fundraising strength, an array of GOP-affiliated outside groups have pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat Obama.

By Susan Walsh, AP

President Obama and the Democratic Party raised $71 million in June, far less than Republicans.

Just days ago, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina warned that the growing money gap "could cost us the election."

Obama and Romney each claimed broad financial support.

Obama's camp said more than 706,000 people had donated last month. Romney and the RNC said more than 536,000 donations came in amounts smaller than $250 — accounting for about one-fifth of its June fundraising haul. Romney's campaign said it raised more than $4 million from more than 40,000 donors in the 24 hours after Supreme Court ruled Obama's health care law constitutional last month.

Romney opposes that law and vows to repeal it.

Typically, money raised online comes in smaller increments.

By contrast, the suggested donation at the fundraiser held at the Koch home was $75,000 per couple, according to the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation, which tracks campaign money. The event at the beachfront estate drew protests, some from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

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Obama Campaign Takes Gamble in Going Negative

With 100 days remaining before Election Day, there is an air of apprehension around the Obama campaign headquarters here. Yet there are few regrets about the tone of the race, only a conviction that the circumstances — a frail economy, intense Republican opposition and a well-financed negative campaign from Mr. Romney and his allies — left Mr. Obama no option but to fight back even if it sullies his image as a candidate of hope and change.

“Is it a different kind of race than 2008? Of course,” said David Axelrod, a senior campaign strategist. “If we were passive in the face of this onslaught we are facing, our folks would be unhappy. There are few on our side who are counseling us to sit idly by.”

Mr. Romney and his allies are giving as good as they get, lacerating Mr. Obama as hapless in promoting job creation, feckless with allies like Israel and determined to expand government until the United States resembles Sweden.

As the campaigns prepare for the next phase of the race, the two sides are taking stock of what they have achieved in their first sustained engagement, a relentlessly negative effort over the last two months to define the other. The exchanges have been so fierce that hardly a positive ad has been broadcast in July.

But both the opportunities and the risks in the definition wars are greater for Mr. Obama. Mr. Romney is less well known to the public, giving Democrats a chance to shape perceptions of him just as more voters are starting to tune in to the race.

The president’s prospects for re-election now rest in part on one of the biggest gambles of his career: that the benefits of trying to eviscerate Mr. Romney outweigh the costs to his own image and reputation.

With a political climate ripe for unseating an incumbent, the president’s campaign team signaled long ago that it had no intention of trying to replicate the 2008 race, and made it clear last year that if Mr. Romney won the Republican nomination, they would rush to aggressively define him before turning to a forward-looking message in the fall.

Mr. Obama, whose competitive and confident streaks seem to have been rekindled by the challenge from Mr. Romney, has shown no inclination to hold back in trying to portray his rival as a secretive Bush-era throwback whose wealth puts him out of touch with the middle class.

The president not only approves of his television ads, as federal election law requires him to say in each commercial, he also screens many of them in advance, either on his iPad or during a regular Sunday evening meeting with political advisers at the White House.

Fearful of the tone becoming too shrill, he took the rare step of speaking directly to the camera in a new ad that elevates the conversation, a hint of his approach when the campaign moves beyond summer.

“Sometimes politics can seem very small,” Mr. Obama said, sounding almost apologetic. “But the choice you face, it couldn’t be bigger.”

His aides wondered in particular whether a recent spot showing Mr. Romney singing “America the Beautiful,” while headlines about outsourcing and overseas bank accounts flashed, was too negative. The president and some of his strategists were unsure, aides said, but a focus group of voters found it to be fair. They still tested the ad again before showing it.

The ratio of negative ads, which are defined as those in which a campaign mentions its rival by name, tells the story. Since April, after Mr. Romney became the presumptive nominee, Mr. Obama broadcast negative commercials 118,775 times compared with 56,128 times for positive commercials.

In the same time period, Mr. Romney ran negative spots 51,973 times and positive spots 11,921, according to an analysis from Kantar Media, which tracks political advertising. This does not include the Republican “super PAC” ads that are almost entirely attacks on the president.

“President Obama was keeping a more balanced mix, but by the end of June he turned off the positive spigot,” said Elizabeth Wilner, who studies advertising for the group.

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Murdoch Chides Romney on Campaign and Obama Challenge

10:19 a.m. | Updated Rupert Murdoch is offering some unsolicited advice to the Romney campaign. Saying he met the candidate last week, Mr. Murdoch, the head of the News Corporation, suggested Sunday on Twitter that Mr. Romney may have to shed some of his current staff and replace them in order to go up against “Tough O Chicago Pros” — no doubt a reference to President Obama‘s campaign team, which is based in that city.

Met Romney last week.Tough O Chicago pros will be hard to beat unless he drops old friends from team and hires some real pros. Doubtful.

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) July 1, 2012

Mr. Murdoch, of course, controls Fox News, a favored spot for influential Republicans including Mr. Romney himself. And it is not the first time the media baron has chimed in on Twitter with some musings on the presidential campaign and the candidates. He once chided Mr. Obama on the antipiracy front, for instance, and predicted Rick Santorum‘s strong showing in Iowa. On his Sunday Twitter burst, Mr. Murdoch also gave a more neutral take on the president, saying the election would be “referendum on Obama, all else pretty minor.”

US election is referendum on Obama, all else pretty minor.

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) July 1, 2012

During the previous presidential election in 2008 Mr. Murdoch remained elusive on which candidate he liked, though he sent some signals that he may have preferred Mr. Obama. Speaking at the annual All Things Digital Conference in 2008 sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, a subsidiary of News Corporation which is controlled by Mr. Murdoch, he said of Mr. Obama, “He is a rock star,” adding, “he’ll probably win it.”

Mr. Murdoch then went on to say that Republican candidate at the time, John McCain, was a “patriot and a decent guy, but he’s unpredictable and he doesn’t know much about the economy, adding, “I think he has a lot of problems.”

Though originally giving strong praise for Mr. Santorum when he was still running for the Republican Party’s nomination, Mr. Murdoch has since offered mainly lukewarm words toward Mitt Romney. Mr. Murdoch recently took to Twitter to criticize Mr. Romney’ immigration policy. His message said: “When is Romney going to look like a challenger? Seems to play everything safe, make no news except burn off Hispanics.” When asked by one of his Twitter followers what he thought of the Mormon religion, Mr. Murdoch called it “a mystery to me, but Mormons certainly not evil.”

On Monday, Mr. Murdoch was back on Twitter again, this time saying he had heard from the Romney campaign and wants Mr. Romney to win to “save us from socialism.”

Romney people upset at me!Of course I want him to win, save us from socialism, etc but should listen to good advice and get stuck in!

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) July 2, 2012

Taylor Arluck contributed reporting.

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In Health Ruling, Relief for Obama but a Blow to Conventional Wisdom

The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision on Thursday to uphold most of President Obama’s health care law represents a hurdle cleared for Mr. Obama. He had been at risk of seeing his most ambitious policy initiative — and most expensive, in terms of the political capital it required — neutered or
overturned by the court.

If Mr. Obama is the victor from the standpoint of public policy, however, some observers have claimed that the decision could help Mitt Romney in terms of electoral politics.

With due respect, I think this counterintuitive conclusion is too cute by half. It may involve the same sort of wishful thinking that liberals were guilty of when some began to argue that the court striking the health care bill would actually help Mr. Obama politically.

Other analyses issued before the decision had implausibly argued that both Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama could benefit from the law being upheld. They seem to forget that in contrast to public policy, electoral politics is largely a zero-sum game.

The health care law is likely to remain fairly unpopular; opinions about it have been essentially unchanged for most of the last two years. The bill was probably partially responsible for the significant losses that Democrats endured in the 2010 midterm elections.

But continued dissatisfaction over the health care bill was presumably already priced into the polls. A decision that upholds the status quo is not likely to change that much.

To the extent there are marginal effects of the court’s decision, they would seem to be positive for Mr. Obama. The framework of the bill has now been endorsed by the court, including by John G. Roberts Jr., the relatively conservative and relatively well-respected Chief Justice who wrote the majority opinion.

To be clear, the risks to Mr. Obama may have been somewhat asymmetric. A decision to strike the law might have harmed him more than the decision to uphold it will help.

And be wary of whatever the polls say for the next week or two — the short-term reaction to the news of the ruling may not match its long-term political effects. As before, the presidential election is mostly likely to be contested mainly on economic grounds. Next week’s jobs report is likely to have a larger effect on the election than what the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

But particularly given the public’s confusion over the health care law, my view has been to keep it simple: Mr. Obama got the good headline here, and that is likely to be most of what the public reacts to.

It is not as though, if the law had been struck down, Republicans would have stopped talking about the folly of the legislation. Members of the public, in mostly opposing the law, had not been objecting to its technical details, some of which they actually supported when quizzed about the specific aspects of the health care overhaul.

Instead, it was to the impression that it represented an overreach on behalf of Mr. Obama — at a time when there is profound skepticism about the direction of government and the efficacy of its policy — that left him vulnerable.

When the dust settles, it seems implausible that Mr. Obama would have been better off politically had his signature reform been nullified by the court. Then Mr. Obama’s perceived overreach would have had the stench of being unconstitutional.

Some of the analyses that claim the law could help Mr. Romney instead argue that Thursday’s decision could motivate the Republican base. But the Republican base was already reasonably well motivated for the election. A decision to strike down the law, meanwhile, would have represented a victory for movement conservatism — and victory can be its own motivating force.

Although some liberals had claimed that a decision to strike the law could have motivated Democratic turnout in anger against the Supreme Court’s decision, it can likewise be argued that it would have left Democrats despondent, particularly given that any efforts to replace an overturned law would have faced huge political obstacles in the near term. The effects on the party bases are hard to sort out.

It is what passes for conventional wisdom that may have been the clearest loser with the court’s decision. Sentiment in prediction markets and among pundits had been that the law was more likely than not to be overturned.

As I wrote on Wednesday, some of these analysis may have gotten ahead of themselves in trying to read the tea leaves.

Statistical methods to predict the court’s decision, which have been more reliable than expert judgment in the past, had pointed to a case that was too close to call.

In another blow to conventional wisdom, the decision to uphold the law came in a 5-to-4 vote, but with Chief Justice Roberts voting with the four liberals on the court while Justice Anthony M. Kennedy voted with the conservatives — and he signed a strongly worded dissenting opinion that claimed the entire law should have been struck down.

This permutation had been considered unlikely by experts, most of whom had predicted a 6-to-3 ruling for the law, or a 5-to-4 ruling against it, with Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy voting together in either case. And if the decision had been 5 to 4 in favor of the law, it was thought that Justice Kennedy and not Chief Justice Roberts would have been more likely to join the majority.

Who came out looking better than the pundits? Interestingly, it may be high school students.

High school students participating in a Supreme Court “fantasy league” sponsored by the nonprofit Harlan Institute had been about evenly divided in predicting the court’s decision, with 57 percent thinking the mandate would be overturned and 43 percent saying it would be upheld.

Nor did the oral arguments in the case, which substantially affected the conventional wisdom, alter the students’ opinions much. Instead, they had seen the case as a tossup from the beginning.

I suspect these students would have been wise enough to avoid some of the counterintuitive speculation about the decision’s political effects that you will now be seeing on television.

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USA TODAY/Gallup Poll: Latinos strongly backing Obama

WASHINGTON – President Obama has built an overwhelming lead among Latino voters, a nationwide USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of Hispanics finds, as Republican challenger Mitt Romney faces a difficult path ahead to make inroads among what has been the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group for a generation.

By Nicholas Kamm, AFP/Getty Images

President Obama announced on June 15 that the U.S. will stop deporting young law-abiding illegal immigrants who satisfy broad criteria.

By Nicholas Kamm, AFP/Getty Images

President Obama announced on June 15 that the U.S. will stop deporting young law-abiding illegal immigrants who satisfy broad criteria.

The president leads Romney 66%-25% among more than 1,000 Latino registered voters surveyed April 16 to May 31, matching his muscular showing in the 2008 election among Hispanics. Romney is in the weakest position among Latinos of any presidential contender since 1996 — and in those intervening 16 years their percentage of the electorate has doubled.

Since the poll was taken, Obama has fortified Hispanic enthusiasm by announcing he would block the deportation of an estimated 800,000 undocumented young Latinos who were brought to the United States as children. In a subsequent USA TODAY/Gallup survey, taken Wednesday-Saturday, more than eight in 10 Latinos approved of the president's action, most of them strongly.

"I've seen that affect a lot of families, so that's actually something I'm pretty much in favor of," says Jonny Rozyla, 22, a college student from Anoka, Minn., a poll respondent who was interviewed by phone. His mother was born in the United States and his father emigrated from Mexico. Rozyla says he "strongly disagrees" with Romney's statements about a controversial Arizona immigration law. "I don't think he's for the people, mostly," he says of Romney. "He's more for the rich than the poor."

Romney's troubles with Hispanic voters are likely to be spotlighted this week following the Supreme Court's ruling on Monday striking down three parts of the Arizona law. The court upheld the section of the law requiring police to check a person's immigration status when there is reasonable doubt about it.

During the GOP primaries, Romney endorsed the right of Arizona and other states to pass laws on immigration. And in recent days, he has sidestepped questions about whether he would overturn Obama's action blocking some deportations.

In a positive sign for the GOP over the long term, the poll finds a generational shift among Latinos that could open the door for Republicans as this immigrant group, like the ones that went before it, deepens its roots in the United States. But for the next four months of this election year, Romney's path is steeply uphill.

"He has the most conservative position on immigration reform of any nominee of our lifetime," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina says. "It's not the only issue Latino voters care about, but it is an important issue that shows people whose side they are on, and it's clear that Mitt Romney's against them."

Romney campaign pollster Neil Newhouse says the economy is the top issue for Latinos, as for other voters.

"President Obama's last-minute pandering to Hispanics can't make up for his record of failed policies that have resulted in Hispanics comprising fully one-third of Americans who are living in poverty," Newhouse says. "Once Hispanic voters realize the president's broken promises to their community, Gov. Romney will win more than his share of their votes. This is why our campaign has been ramping up efforts to get our message to Americans of Hispanic descent."

On Friday, Romney announced Hispanic "Juntos con Romney" ("Together with Romney") teams in 15 states, and his campaign has begun airing more TV and radio ads on Spanish-language stations. In a speech to a convention of Hispanic officials in Orlando on Thursday, he took a softer tone on immigration than he had when battling for the Republican nomination.

He received a friendly reception from NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. But Obama, who spoke Friday, got a jubilant one.

Romney's comments during the GOP primaries are creating serious obstacles for him now. He promised to veto a proposal that would provide a path to citizenship for young Latinos brought here illegally as children, and he said he wouldn't have voted to confirm the woman who became the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.

"Running an ad that says, 'I would never vote for Sonia Sotomayor,' 'I would veto the DREAM Act' — those are really easy things to crystallize and repeat," says Sylvia Manzano, a political scientist at Texas A&M University who studies Hispanic politics.

A generational shift?

The USA TODAY Poll's findings offer encouragement for Republicans down the road. Among second-generation Latinos — that is, those whose parents were born in the United States — attitudes about the role of government shift significantly and openness to conservative policies expand.

That doesn't mean Republicans are guaranteed to gain Hispanic support over time, but it does mean there will be more opportunities for them to do so. That raises questions about the argument by some analysts that the nation's changing demographics all but ensure Democratic majorities in the future.

Consider: On a list of a half-dozen issues, Latino registered voters who immigrated to the U.S. themselves rate immigration policies, a particular sore point with the GOP, as their highest priority. Latinos whose parents were born here rank immigration last.

Parker Maldonado, 43, a financial adviser from Goddard, Kan., who was called in the poll, is more concerned about pocketbook issues and argues that other Hispanics should be, too. His grandmother came from Puerto Rico and his grandfather emigrated from Spain. "Immigration is not going to mean anything if our economy doesn't improve," he says.

Asked about the issues most important to him, Joel Gomez, 31, who emigrated from Mexico 10 years ago, praises Obama's recent step for young Hispanics. "That's a relief for Latinos," says the Maryland construction worker, who was surveyed in Spanish. "We can walk without fear through the streets."

Gomez, who became a U.S. citizen three years ago, is inclined to cast his first presidential vote for Obama. Maldonado says he is likely to vote for Romney.

In the USA TODAY survey, Latino registered voters who immigrated say by almost 5-to-1 that the government should do more to solve our country's problems (a generally liberal view) rather than saying the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses (a generally conservative view).

Among registered Hispanic voters who are the U.S.-born children of immigrants, that ratio narrows to nearly 2-1.

And among those whose parents were born in the U.S., the split is about even.

The findings are based on a nationwide poll of 1,753 Hispanic adults, including 1,005 registered voters, taken in English and Spanish from April 16 to May 31. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points for the full sample and +/- 4 for registered voters only. The poll was supplemented by a survey Wednesday through Saturday of 424 Hispanics.

Obama scores a wide lead among all three Hispanic groups, supported by 72% of Latino registered voters who immigrated themselves and by 69% of those with at least one immigrant parent. Among those whose parents were born in the USA, 58% support the president.

Still, Romney does twice as well among second-generation Latinos compared with immigrants. Among immigrant voters, just 18% support Romney. That number rises to 22% among the children of at least one immigrant parent and to 35% among Hispanics whose families have been in the U.S. for two generations or more.

Democratic pollster Margie Omero says she heard threads of "generational movement and shift" in a focus group of Hispanic women in Las Vegas this month that she helped run with Republican pollster Alex Bratty. The session was part of a series sponsored by Wal-Mart on middle-income women seen as swing voters and dubbed "Wal-Mart Moms."

"They talked about what their parents went through and how different that was from what they were going through, and their children," she says. "That's what we've seen with immigrant communities over our history. Each generation faces a different type of struggle, a different kind of interaction with the American community."

Obama pollster Joel Benenson cautions, though, that what he calls a "damaged" relationship between the GOP and many Hispanic voters at a time Latino political power is rising will make those negative attitudes hard to reshape, even decades from now.

"What's the defining dynamic politically at the point at which you become engaged in voting and politics?" he asks. "We've gone through people who came in through the anti-war movement or the women's movement or the civil rights movement in the late '60s, early '70s. You had Reagan Democrats… who were in the early formative years of their politics when they voted for Reagan in the '80s. Those things that are really vibrant at the time you come into the political system can shape your thinking for a long time."

A growing advantage

Whatever the long-term prospects for the GOP, in this election year Obama is solidifying the big gains he scored among Hispanics in 2008. Surveys of voters as they left polling places then found that 67% of Latinos voted for him, up by double digits from Democrat John Kerry's share four years earlier and about the same level of support he has now.

That advantage is increasingly powerful. An analysis of U.S. Census data by Mark Lopez of the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center shows that the proportion of Latino eligible voters grew from 2008 to 2010 in seven of the 12 battleground states likely to determine November's outcome — potentially a critical margin in a close election.

Meanwhile, the Republican share of the Latino vote continues to erode, from 44% for George W. Bush in 2004 to 31% for John McCain in 2008 to 25% in the survey for Romney. "We've seen a sharp drop-off … between 2004 and 2008," acknowledges Ed Gillespie, a senior Romney adviser and former Republican Party national chairman. "It was a factor, obviously, in the margin of President Obama's win. We do need to do better with Hispanic voters, and I think we can."

GOP strategist Leslie Sanchez estimates Romney needs the votes of 35% of Latinos to be competitive in November.

A senior Obama campaign official who was willing to speak about strategy only on condition of anonymity puts the bar higher in some key states. He calculates Romney needs to get a bit more than 40% of the Hispanic vote to win the battlegrounds of Florida and Nevada, where Latinos make up a significant share of the electorate.

Harsh rhetoric and hard-line policies toward illegal immigrants have soured many Latinos toward the GOP, even those who aren't particularly concerned about immigration for themselves and their families. "It's the lens by which Hispanic voters view the Republican Party," says Sanchez, author of Los Republicanos: Why Hispanics and Republicans Need Each Other. "It's the tinted lens."

In the roundtable discussion in Las Vegas, nine Latinas talked about their lives, their families and the election. The focus group was streamed live to a small group of reporters in Washington, D.C. They saw their votes as mattering: "We're a community, and we want our voice to be heard," Karla Luarte, the mother of three, said as heads nodded around the table.

Six of the women had voted for Obama in 2008, but several expressed disappointment in him now. Some have seen family members struggle to find a job; others have had trouble holding on to their houses. They note he has failed to enact the comprehensive immigration legislation he promised during the 2008 campaign.

They didn't know much about Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, though his business experience impressed some. The aspirational message of the American dream, which is what many Republicans say they offer, struck a chord as they talked about their hopes for their children.

Still, asked which candidate they trusted more on immigration, eight hands went up for Obama and one for Romney.

Contributing: Marisol Bello, Aamer Madhani

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