FORWARD!

Let's set the table. President Obama is up by eight in Virginia 51-43, is up by 5 in Ohio, is up by a micrometer in Florida. Survey USA has President Obama up by 4 in North Carolina 47-43. Obama has 19 office in Ohio, Romney Zero.


President Obama flew yesterday and signed the Status of Forces Agreement in Kabul which will effectively end the Afghanistan war by 2014 and he announced 25,000 troops coming home by summer. 


When President Obama cut the ad about killing Osama bin Laden, he put in the kicker at the end that Mitt Romney did want to spend billions going after one man and not into the territory of an ally. I don't think the Obama campaign could believe their luck when the entire Republican foreign establishment responsible for the Iraq War erupted to protest or that the advocates for torture would pen op-ed pieces claiming credit. The pile-on by all the Republicans protesting that President Obama deserved credit only reinforced the image of the President's daring actions. 


Mitt Romney was left trying to explain "any rational person would have done the same thing." Unfortunately for Romney, two presidents before President Obama didn't do the same thing. Then Romney opened up a can of worms when he suggested "even Jimmy Carter" would have made that decision. This opened Romney up to criticism by people like James Fellows in the Atlantic and a host of Democratic bloggers who made the observation that Jimmy Carter had gone to the Naval Academy and served for ten years in the Navy, while Mitt Romney had never served. In fact,people noted that in six generations there is not one Romney who is a veteran. Astonishing when you realize that covers the Civil War,the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, the Iraq War and Afghanistan. 


Mitt was left yesterday wandering around Manhattan with Rudy Guiliani buying pizza for the firemen who answered the call for 9-11. By the end of the day, Romney backtracked and congratulated President Obama for getting bin Laden. 


By then it was too late. Romney was seen surrounded by all the Bush foreign policy people and he even chose as his foreign policy spokesman the Bush spokesperson for the Iraq War.


Beep-beep, the Obama roadrunner had already run ads in Virginia, Ohio and Iowa about Romney's Swiss bank accounts. Later in the day, the campaign posted the infographic showing all the countries where Romney had his foreign bank accounts.


It was obvious that Democrats loved seeing the Obama campaign taking the fight to Romney and the Republicans. Even Mark Halperin said that Obama had taken a page out of Karl Rove's playbook and neutralized the entire foreign policy debate. It was clear that the Republicans hadn't expected it and they were surprised that President Obama would fight back. Mark MacKinnon, the former Bush strategist, had urged the Republicans from commenting on the anniversary of the death of bin Laden and he said their overreaction simply re-affirmed the view that President Obama had been a strong commander-in-chief. 


The Obama campaign also released its 7 minute video "Forward", which lists the President's accomplishments over the past three years. The video is being used as an organizing tool for the campaign.


In only a few days from the last post, President Obama knocked Romney down again. He has effectively defined Romney this easy in the campaign and will keep hammering home the message that Romney is out of touch with Americans.