Senior Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod said Mitt Romney’s
visit to Pennsylvania shows the GOP nominee's campaign is in “deep trouble” and losing in the
traditional battlegrounds.
Axelrod told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that the Romney campaign’s move into Pennsylvania is a sign of desperation because they are
trailing in polls in Ohio, a state no Republican has won the election
without.
“The battleground states on which we have been focusing on are not working
out for them,” Axelrod said. “We're ahead in all of them and now are looking for somewhere, desperately looking for somewhere to try and dislodge some electoral votes to win this election. And I can tell you that's not going to happen.”
The Romney campaign began putting money into Pennsylvania in
the campaign homestretch, and Romney is attending a rally in the state Sunday.
Obama holds a 4.1 percent advantage in Pennsylvania in the Real Clear Politics polling average, although one poll released Saturday night showed the race tied.
Axelrod said last week he would shave his famed mustache if President
Obama lost Pennsylvania, Michigan or Minnesota, and he told Wallace he was
confident he would still have his mustache this time next week.
Romney political director Rich Beeson, however, kicked off his
interview with Wallace by saying he was “trying to understand what Mr. Axelrod
is going to look like next week without his mustache.”
Beeson said that Romney’s move into Pennsylvania was a sign
that Romney was expanding the map, just as Obama was campaigning in Indiana
in the final days of 2008.
“I don’t think campaigning in states where we haven’t won since
1988, 1984 and 1972 are exactly acts of desperation,” Beeson said. “It looks like the
map is expanding drastically in our favor.”
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