As the Democrats leave Charlotte, N.C., after rallying behind President Obama, they face an uphill battle. Americans are concerned about jobs, entitlements and the growing federal deficit — the three things that Obama and the Democrats don’t want to talk about. But they must if they’re going to have any chance of keeping the White House.
Democrats surely can’t take much comfort from the national and battleground state polls that show a close race. Americans are only starting to pay attention to the campaign, and their natural instinct is to support the candidate they know (Obama) over the candidate they’re just learning about (Romney). But one group of voters has been paying attention for quite some time and that should concern all Democrats.
I’m talking about job creators — the entrepreneurs, CEOs and other business owners whom President Obama mostly ignores, when he’s not criticizing them. Two recent polls of this group should be sending waves of panic through the president’s re-election team. For instance, an August 20 Rasmussen poll found that Romney leads Obama by 20 points among entrepreneurs (56 percent to 36 percent). Another poll from Manta, released on August 24, shows that 61 percent of small business owners support Romney, compared to just 26 percent who support Obama.
At least among this group, there is no contest: America’s job creators support Mitt Romney by overwhelming margins. This comports with my own informal survey of business leaders in consumer electronics and other industries. I have yet to meet a CEO who supports the president’s re-election. Indeed, in an August 8 column I wrote for Forbes, I asked if there were among my readers any business owners who support Obama. I wasn’t just trying to make a political point: I was completely serious. I want to hear the argument for why job creators should vote for Obama. I repeated this challenge on national television in August.
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