Pay no attention to those sagging poll numbers or the public’s rather dismal view of Barack Obama’s handling of the economy. In the view of the White House, this too shall pass. The cure for such political doldrums? Just wait until the public gets a load of these Republican clowns who want to replace him!

President Obama is struggling in the polls against would-be Republican challengers because voters don’t know the GOP contenders well enough yet, a top White House official said Thursday.

Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer expressed confidence that Obama would perform better against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or Texas Gov. Rick Perry once Americans familiarize themselves with those GOP presidential candidates.

“My guess is that a significant portion of the people polled, the American people, don’t know what Mitt Romney’s economic plan is yet,” Pfeiffer said on MSNBC. “I’m confident they will know that he supports Cut, Cap and Balance, which would essentially end Medicare, end Social Security.”

It’s an interesting bit of spin, I suppose. On the one hand, you can almost cut Pfeiffer a little slack when talking about Rick Perry. He’s only been in the race for a few weeks, and outside of Texas and the inner circle of hard core political geeks, voters are just getting to know him. (Though poll trends indicate that the more they see, the more they’re beginning to warm up.) But… Romney?

At this point Mitt Romney has been running for president since, I believe, the same year that Flashdance was the number one movie in the nation. His name recognition among primary voters currently sits at 86%. To get people with a higher score – aside from Barack Obama – you’ve got to start including Lady Gaga and Oprah. People know Mitt Romney.

Not to toot my own horn, but this really does fall in line with a prediction I made earlier this week. The knock on Romney for CC&B made sure to work in the phrase, “would essentially end Medicare, end Social Security.” This is the theme that Obama will run on in 2012, as will all of the Democratic congressional hopefuls. (Any discussions of how Obama offered to cut entitlements during the debt ceiling debate will be considered ill mannered and off limits, thank you very much.)

Lest you think this story too fanciful for reality, here’s the video. The expression on Pfeiffer’s face is sort of priceless as he attempts to paint lipstick on this… darn it. Almost forgot the “new tone.”

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