Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama insists
he's ahead but is running like the underdog, adopting a street-fighting
posture and campaigning himself hoarse across the country. Republican
challenger Mitt Romney seeks to make his election seem inevitable and
calls Obama's campaign desperate.
A role reversal by the
candidates that occurred over the course of the three presidential
debates is continuing in the final stage of the race, portending
frenzied politicking until voters deliver the verdict on November 6.
For Obama, that means
more campaign swings like the two-day trip to eight states this week --
including his "all-nighter" on Air Force One, as well as events
targeting younger audiences. He has appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon
Stewart" and planned an MTV interview on Friday.
It also means increasingly caustic attacks on Romney, including his reference to the former Massachusetts governor as a "bullshitter" in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine to be published after the election.
Romney, meanwhile, tries
to exude the air of a president-to-be, continuing his campaign's
constant assault on Obama's presidency but presenting himself as above
the fray of political mudslinging.
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In a new twist to his
standard stump speech, Romney has co-opted Obama's campaign theme of
2008 by declaring himself the candidate of change in contrast to the
status quo of what he called four more years of failed policies under
the president.
"Four years ago, candidate Obama spoke to the scale of the times," Romney said Friday in Iowa,
one of the handful of swing states that will decide the election.
"Today, he shrinks from it, trying instead to distract our attention
from the biggest issues to the smallest -- from characters on Sesame
Street and silly word games to misdirected personal attacks he knows are
false. The president's campaign falls far short of the magnitude of
these times."
He referred to attack
lines in the Obama stump speech that target Romney's shifting positions
on issues as "Romnesia" and characterize the GOP contender's proposed
cuts in government funding for public television as an assault on "Big
Bird."
To Darrell West, the
vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings
Institution, both candidates now devote their campaign efforts to
motivating core supporters to get out and vote, rather than trying to
persuade a shrinking number of uncommitted voters.
"I think each side is
focusing more on their base than on the undecided," West told CNN,
noting that after months of the campaign deluge, "it's so hard to know
what at this point is going to persuade people to make up their minds."
In addition, Obama "has
shifted to underdog status and Romney is playing the role of
frontrunner," West added, citing the dynamic of the debates for the
change in campaign postures.
Obama's lackluster
performance against an aggressive Romney in the first debate in Denver
on October 3 gave the challenger a validating boost that has brought him
even or in some cases ahead of the president in the polls.
After the initial
drubbing, Obama came out aggressively in the second and third debates to
win both in the eyes of analysts and public opinion, and he has
subsequently maintained the combative posture.
"I think it is a
reaction to the tightening surveys after the first debate," West said.
"Obama clearly lost his political advantage, so he's had to recast
himself as the underdog."
Romney, meanwhile, is "trying to create a sense of inevitability about his campaign," according to West.
"When you're the
challenger, you run as a candidate of change," noted CNN Chief Political
Analyst Gloria Borger. "President Obama last time ran as a candidate of
change. There was no incumbent, but he was all about change. This time,
Mitt Romney is all about change, promising big change on the campaign
trail."
Romney is benefiting
from his "great" first debate and strong fundraising and poll numbers it
spawned, Borger said, adding: "He had a good October."
In response, Obama has
sharpened his criticism of Romney's proposals as backward and outdated
to exploit his advantage among women, African-American, Latino and gay
voters.
"You can choose to turn
back the clock 50 years for women and immigrants and gays, or in this
election, you can stand up for that basic principle enshrined in our
founding documents that all of us are created equal, all of us endowed
with certain inalienable rights by our Creator; that it doesn't matter
whether you're black or white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, young
or old, rich or poor, gay or straight, abled or disabled -- we all have a
place in America," the raw-voiced president shouted Thursday night in Cleveland, eliciting cheers and chants.
Obama also regularly
ridicules Romney's foreign policy stances as wrong and misguided, and he
points out what he calls his opponent's constantly shifting positions
for political gain.
"We joke about Romnesia,
but it's not funny because it speaks to something serious," Obama said
Thursday. "It has to do with trust."
In the Rolling Stone interview,
Obama commented on how young children who tend to support him are hard
to fool, adding: "They look at the other guy and say, well, that's a
bullshitter. I can tell."
The Romney campaign
immediately fired back, saying: "President Obama is rattled and on the
defensive. He's running on empty and has nothing left but attacks and
insults. It's unfortunate he has to close the final days of his campaign
this way."
Romney, meanwhile, has sounded like Obama of four years ago on the campaign trail in describing the choice facing voters.
Blaming Obama for
continuing high unemployment and sluggish economic growth, Romney made a
point Friday of challenging the president's contention that his
policies prevented a depression and have pulled the nation out of
recession he inherited.
"The problem with the
Obama economy is not what he inherited; it is with the misguided
policies that slowed the recovery, and caused millions of Americans to
endure lengthy unemployment and poverty," Romney said.
He called the election
"a choice between the status quo -- going forward with the same policies
of the last four years -- or instead, choosing real change, change that
offers promise, promise that the future will be better than the past."
West said Obama can
benefit from a more aggressive approach in messaging and campaigning of
running as the underdog, but he warned that Romney would take a risk by
relying on perceived or claimed momentum.
"I think the riskiest
position in a close race is to try sit on a lead and make an argument
about momentum," West said. "Momentum is very nebulous. Romney has done
well over the last few weeks in the polls, but that can change fast."