Obama takes big lead in polls: Romney money can’t buy him love

Mitt Romney’s 2012 election problem appears to be that money can’t buy him love.

Despite record campaign contributions from right-wing funded Super PACs, a new Bloomberg National poll shows Mitt Romney now trailing President Obama by a whopping 13 points. Obama leads with 53%, over Romney’s 40%.

While there were some numbers that favored Romney, the overall results pointed to a single factor: People just don’t like or trust Mitt Romney.

Romney’s big trouble seems to stem, in part, from a lack of support from his own Republican Party. Among the likely registered voters polled, 33% said they were Republicans, 38%, Democrats.

Romney’s lackluster support from the electorate has a common thread among independents and Democrats, as well as Republicans. The majority said they simply didn’t like Romney, calling him out of touch, by a 55% to 36% margin. Fewer than one-third said they wanted to sit next to Romney on an airplane, and nearly two-thirds don’t want to look at him on television for the next four years.

One respondent told the San Francisco Chronicle that while Obama, “hasn't fulfilled a lot of his campaign promises,” he would vote for him anyway because “Romney would be extremely destructive for this country."

Business Week reports: “The poll also undercuts Romney’s central argument for his candidacy, suggesting that his background as a private-equity executive isn’t seen by voters as his greatest strength.”

President Obama’s advertising on Romney’s time at Bain Capital LLC has apparently hit a chord with voters who lack confidence in Romney’s ability to be a job creator.

A Colorado small businessman said, Romney has “too much money to understand what a guy like me deals with,” the Business Week report added.

Education and immigration have been hot-button issues for Romney in recent weeks that could haunt him right up to Election Day in November. Romney said he would eliminate the Department of Education during the primaries, and just last week, reiterated his anti-Dream Act policy, saying that he would veto the bill if he were president.

The combination of education cuts and his immigration policy make it harder to sell a Romney presidency to an electorate whose top priority is job creation.

“Immigrants from Asia who come with a high level of education and highly marketable skills now outnumber Hispanic immigrants. Unlike the Mexicans who were taking jobs that Americans did not want to do, the new Asian immigrants are snapping up high paying positions for which too many American kids lack training,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Young people in America are already having a hard time getting the education skills they need to compete in a high-tech world. More budget cuts to education gives foreigners an edge in the job market.

These latest numbers should give the GOP pause when it comes to negative campaign advertising against President Obama. The poll also showed that voters don’t really know who Romney really is, what he stands for, or what he would do as president. Therefore, it is not likely Romney can win with Obama-bashing alone.

The polls can change between now and November and likely will. Whether they show more Obama strength or shift in Romney’s favor is a wild card right now. The only thing that seems certain is that the outcome of 2012 presidential race will be a game-changer for the direction of the U.S. no matter who inevitably wins.

This poll was conducted, June 15 -18, 2012.

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