Obama top strategist David Axelrod wants the public to know he wasn’t rattled at all by Mitt Romney’s surge in the polls after the first debate.
“Governor Romney got back some of the Republican-leaning independents that we always expected him to have after his debate,” Axelrod said in a conference call with reporters today, adding that the Democrats’ convention and the impact from Romney’s remark about the 47 percent had been responsible for Obama’s high numbers prior to the first debate.
“This is a race we believe we’re leading,” Axelrod stressed. “We believe we’re leading nationally, and we’re leading in these battleground states.”
The campaign was also adamant that they are not pulling out of any states, particularly not North Carolina, Florida, or Virginia. “We continue to feel that North Carolina is a neck-and-neck race,” said Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. “We have added millions of dollars to television spending in each of these states in the last couple of weeks and for the last couple of weeks,” Axelrod said. “We are doubling down. We are not pulling back at all.”
UPDATE: “Three weeks ago Jim Messina was insisting they were ahead in the battleground states and today he is insisting they aren’t pulling out of any states,” says Romney campaign political director Rich Beeson in a statement. “That doesn’t sound like ‘Forward’ to me. And while the Obama campaign continues to engage in desperate attacks, Governor Romney will continue talking about his plan for a real recovery for the middle class, which has suffered under the failed Obama policies of the last four years.”