The convention wisdom espoused by most political pundits and journalists during the past week has been that Romney’s statements after last week’s embassy attack — in which he falsely accused Obama of “sympathizing” with the attackers in an effort to score cheap political points on the night a U.S. Ambassador was killed — caused damage to his presidential chances.
Sadly, the Gallup daily presidential tracking poll is showing exactly the opposite: Romney appears to have benefited politically from this supposed “gaffe.” On the night Romney released his embassy-killings statement, Obama led by 7 points (50% to 43%) in the poll, which uses a seven-day rolling average. During the week that followed, the poll has shown Romney’s support steadily gaining and Obama’s steadily falling, to the point that Obama now leads by only a single percentage point, 47% to 46%.
Could it be that Romney’s “sympathized with terrorists” lie actually swayed middle-ground voters to his side, despite assumptions it would do the opposite? Maybe most of these people who who heard Romney’s false accusation assumed it was true? If so, I can find no political news outlets or commentators who are noticing or commenting on this fact.
