WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Republican National Convention officially began in Tampa, Florida, Monday amid a tight race between U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney.
Although its first-day events were canceled due to Tropical Storm Isaac, the convention is expected to continue the following day.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll released on Monday had Romney ahead at 47 percent to Obama's 46 percent among registered voters. The same survey last month had the two deadlocked at 47 percent.
Romney's pre-convention bounce could grow this week as the country gets a better look at the contender in a tightly managed event designed to boost his image, unlike the debates in the coming months, in which either candidate's appeal to voters could diminish, some analysts say.
RealClearPolitics.com's poll average is also close, putting Obama's support at 47 percent and Romney's at 46 percent. The polls mirror the tight race in the past few months in which the candidates have been running neck and neck.
While Romney has lost points here and there in a few polls due to Obama's attack ads, the negative campaign has not made a significant difference, although critics have faulted Romney for not fighting back. Romney has said he wants to keep the race clean.
The challenger's pick of Congressman Paul Ryan as running mate has not significantly changed the race. Some pundits, observers and political prognosticators contended that Florida Senator Marco Rubio would have been a wiser choice for vice president, as the Latino senator could have helped Romney gain more of the Hispanic vote.
Other analysts, however, argued that Ryan was adept at taking complex economic information and boiling it down to layman's terms amid an election in which the economy overwhelmingly tops the list of voters' concerns.
John Fortier, director of the democracy project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the race at this point most closely resembled the 2004 reelection race of George W. Bush and the 1976 race between former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
Ford's job approval rated in the mid-forties over the summer of 1976. George W. Bush's approval rating was in the high forties, but inched up over 50 percent for a fair amount of autumn. Obama is in the 46 percent to 47 percent range in Gallup's polling. Ford lost narrowly, Bush won narrowly, he noted.
"There is sometimes said to be a rule of thumb that, if a president is below 50 percent job approval, he is in trouble," Fortier said.
"Realistically, that number is probably 47 percent or 48 percent as the tipping point, so I think Obama is really right on the edge."
"He is popular enough to get elected, but unpopular enough not to be re-elected," he said, adding that by comparison, former presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were well above 50 percent job approval at this stage of the race, and they won.
Tropical Storm Isaac, however, might prove a distraction and deprive Republicans of the spotlight, as cameras on the ground in Tampa had to decide whether to devote air time to the storm or to the convention, The Daily Beast said in an article released Monday.
Still, that may not matter much.
A Rasmussen poll released Monday found that most voters won't be watching much of the upcoming national political conventions, and more than one-third of independent voters planned to tune them out completely.
The national telephone survey found only 11 percent of likely voters planned to watch all of the GOP convention and another 16 percent would watch most. Forty-four percent expected to watch some of it, and 24 percent would ignore it altogether.
TAMPA, the United States, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Republican Party on Monday kicked off its 2012 National Convention in Tampa, Florida, which is set to nominate Mitt Romney as the party's candidate to challenge President Barack Obama in the November presidential election. Full story
TAMPA, the United States. Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Republican Party is convening their national convention Monday in Tampa, Florida, to nominate Mitt Romney as their standard bearer to challenge President Barack Obama in the coming presidential election.Full Story
WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign on Friday announced a week-long package of events to court women voters, ahead of next week's Republican National Convention set to formally nominate the Romney-Ryan ticket.Full Story
BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan have criticized Obama’s plan to reduce Medicare’s projected growth by 716 billion dollars over 10 years.Full Story
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