The Romney negative, a statistic closely watched by campaign aides and pundits, has been consistently higher than his favorables. Those gaffes, policies, refusal to be transparant and those secret tapes are certainly contributing to those numbers.
Sixty-one percent in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll hold an unfavorable view of how Romney's handling his presidential campaign, up by 12 percentage points since mid-July. Far fewer, 35 percent, rate Romney's performance positively, according to Politico.
When I've talked to people who try put into words what bothers them about Romney, both Republicans and Democrats, one answer I've gotten is that he's like those corporate guys who can turn your world upside down.
To them, on a visceral level, Romney, with his forty-seven percent comment, reminds them of that boss who doesn't know who you are, what you've accomplished or your potential and doesn't care. He sees his bottom line, his favorites, cuts coming, and you're in the way.
You can go to that new boss -- who's not the same as the old boss -- and try to impress him, but you don't exist for him, which is what he wants of you, to be nonexistent. You become an irritant if you show your worth. To a boss like that, an irritant or worse, a statistic, is something to be managed out. If you question him, you're someone to be fired for the audacity to challenge that boss's actions that are impacting your life.
"We all want to thank John or Jane Doe for his/her good work these past eighteen years," he tells your peers as he's firing you, "and wish him/her the best for the future."
All the while, he's sneaked in a bad review he's never shown you to deny you unemployment insurance to save that one more nickel for his green fees at the country club.
Romney may be a very different person under his discomfiting shell. His problem is that he doesn't show it. The personality he projects, the damning words caught on tape and those Ayn Rand policies come across as disconnected and entitled. Since we're entitled to a president who works for us, rather than the other way around, it's not a image that will gain a positive with those who count on our representative government to actually represent us.