DECKER: Obama’s October surprise: weakness

It is crisis time at the Obama campaign. Republican challenger Mitt Romney now leads President Obama by 4 points nationally, 49 percent to 45 percent, according to Pew. The Republican has a large 8-point margin among men. More alarming for liberals, however, is the president’s freefall among one of the Democrats’ most important constituencies: women. Mr. Obama is losing married women and white women by huge margins and now is tied with Mr. Romney among all women, with 47 percent each. With less than a month to go before Election Day, a second Obama term is increasingly less likely. The president is looking like a loser so supporters are abandoning ship.

It’s no surprise that Obama for America — the questionable official name of the president’s re-election effort — is panicking to shake up its campaign staff, as reported by MSNBC. Like millions of unemployed Americans in the depressed Obama economy, Mr. Obama’s message isn’t working. Before last week’s debate, Mr. Romney had a 2-point advantage on the economy, according to Gallup. After wiping the floor with the president in Denver, Mr. Romney now has a 6-point lead on jobs and the economy, according to a new poll by Zogby Analytics and The Washington Times. This bounce is a logical reaction to America’s horrible jobless problem during this administration, in which unemployment was stuck over 8 percent for 43 straight months. This crisis is getting worse, not better. September had the grimmest results in non-government job creation in nine months.

The tide is quickly turning in the GOP’s favor. Across the country, polls show voters are moving away from Mr. Obama and his party. While the liberal media worked to portray the Romney campaign as a lost cause only two weeks ago, Mitt is now ahead of the president by 2 points in 11 swing states, according to Rasmussen Reports. The Republican standard-bearer is narrowing the gap in states that should be safe territory for the Democrat. In Pennsylvania, Mr. Obama is now up by a mere 3 points where he once maintained a commanding 12-point edge, according to Sienna Research Institute. His pole position in Michigan has fallen from 7 points to 3 in a week, and the two candidates are within the margin of error in Wisconsin, Colorado and Iowa. Perhaps most importantly, Mr. Romney is now up by 2 points in Florida, 1 point in Virginia and 1 point in Ohio. He was trailing by as many as 7 points in the Buckeye State as recently as last month. Since Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, no Republican has even become president without winning Ohio.

Mr. Romney’s momentum is helping elephants in tight races across the country. For example, Republican Sen. Scott Brown is up 4 points in liberal Massachusetts, Dean Heller is up 1 point in Nevada and Josh Mandel is now tied in his hard-fought attempt to unseat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio. According to Gallup’s latest numbers released on Monday, Mr. Romney is beating Mr. Obama by 2 points among likely voters nationwide. In 1980, Ronald Reagan was losing to President Jimmy Carter until October, at which point the Gipper ran away with the election. This is the right time for Mitt Romney to make his move.

Brett M. Decker is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. He is coauthor of the new book “Bowing to Beijing” (Regnery, 2011).

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