Karl Rove: Obama 'In Desperate Shape'

Thursday, 20 Sep 2012

By Greg McDonald

Political strategist Karl Rove Wednesday said recent polls show President Barack Obama in "desperate shape" in some key states he carried in 2008 and urged Republicans not to be discouraged by polls suggesting Mitt Romney has been wounded too severely by campaign missteps to recover.



"The swing state poll shows the president in desperate shape in territory he carried with ease in 2008," Rove said told Fox News' Neil Cavuto Wednesday evening, referring to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll showing Obama up by 48 percent to 46 percent over Romney.



Rove, a Fox News contributor and the founder of the Republican super PAC Crossroad GPS, said a closer look at the poll, however, indicates trouble ahead for the president in many of the 11 key battleground states when compared to a similar poll from the 2008 presidential race.



Rove noted that Obama was ahead of Sen. John McCain then with 55 percent of likely voters, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in mid-September of that campaign.



"So Mitt Romney is already running ahead of the pace of John McCain. And President Obama is running . . . over six points behind where he did in these states in 2008," Rove told Cavuto.



"It's amazing to me," Rove said, adding that he would be worried "if I were in the White House and looking at this."



Rove said the media tends to "endow" political polls "with a false scientific precision that they do not have. They do not necessarily predict the outcome of an event that`s going to take place 49 days from now."



As an example, Rove pointed to the 1980 Reagan-Carter campaign, noting that Ronald Reagan was down significantly in the polls through September and October and came back in the final days to beat President Jimmy Carter.



He said that election was similar to the one playing out now between Obama and Romney.



"People were saying, 'You know what, this guy [Carter] is so bad. We have got double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, we got double-digit interest rates. . . Why is Ronald Reagan losing to Jimmy Carter?'" Rove said, adding: "Everyone said, 'Oh my God, we are going to lose. And, of course, we didn't."







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