Why Romney can't move ahead of Obama

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*** Injecting race into the campaign: So today, the Romney campaign is commemorating the 16th anniversary of welfare reform being signed into law. “[D]on’t expect President Obama to mark the occasion after just last month gutting the historic work requirements,” the campaign said in a statement. But that AP piece mentioned above notes how the welfare attack injects the issue of race in the presidential campaign. “It could open Romney up to criticism that he is injecting race into the campaign and seeking to boost support among white, working-class voters by charging that the nation’s first black president is offering a free pass to recipients of a program stereotypically associated with poor African-Americans. And Romney runs the risk of denting his credibility with voters by peddling an argument that has been widely debunked.” Steve Lombardo, a GOP pollster who worked on Romney’s 2008 campaign said this to AP: “It’s a tacit acknowledgement that it’s not enough to just hammer the economy. That will get you to 46, 47 percent, but it won’t get you to 51 percent.”

*** Here are some more numbers from our NBC/WSJ poll: Obama’s approval rating stands at 48% (which matches his ballot number); just 32% think the country is headed in the right direction; 36% say the info they’ve heard about Mitt Romney’s taxes has given them a more negative impression of the candidate (versus 6% who say more positive); Romney has an six-point edge (44%-38%) on which candidate has better ideas for improving the economy; and Democrats lead by five points on the generic congressional ballot, 47%-42%, which is something to watch. And a quick note: At noon ET, we will debut our monthly NBC/WSJ/Telemundo oversample of Latino voters.

*** The Akin story has become a mess for the GOP: There is really no other way to put it: The entire Todd Akin story has become an unequivocal mess for the Republican Party. Consider: This is THE STORY just days before the GOP convention, drawing attention to the GOP’s platform on abortion; Akin — so far — is remaining in the race, despite pleas from party leaders like Mitt Romney; and he even went on “TODAY” this morning, saying, per NBC’s Jamie Novogrod: “I think that anybody who’s doing a lot of public speaking can make a mistake. The people of my state … knew I wasn’t perfect.” Indeed, Akin may be doing as much damage to the GOP brand right now BEFORE the convention as Pat Buchanan’s famous 1992 speech did AT the convention. But writing in National Journal, Matthew Dowd makes a very good point about the entire Akin affair. “Make no mistake, the calls for Akin’s resignation likely had nothing to do with the substance of his remarks — keep in mind, the Republican platform has a call for a ban on abortion even in cases of rape. They had nothing to do with the fact that Akin has long held out-of-the-mainstream positions on many issues and made numerous extremely conservative statements. Akin’s mistake was that by opening his mouth with crazy talk … made it much harder for Republicans to win a sure Senate seat pickup with him on the ballot.”