Back to campaigning for Romney after uneven trip

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pivoted quickly into the three-month stretch run to the U.S. election Tuesday, unveiling a new feel-good television ad and stoking speculation about his vice presidential pick after wrapping up a stumble-marred overseas trip.

Abroad as well as at home, Romney sought to focus on the U.S. economy — the issue voters care most about in the tight presidential race and the greatest liability for President Barack Obama.

In the final hours of his trip, in Warsaw, Poland, the former Massachusetts governor extolled the Polish economy as a model for the rest of the world in an era of slow growth or worse, and he simultaneously sought to limit the political fallout caused by comments he made earlier on a stop in Israel that angered Palestinians.

"The world should pay close attention to the transformation of the Polish economy" since the end of communist rule more than two decades ago, he said in a speech in the Polish capital. "A march toward economic liberty and smaller government has meant a march toward higher living standards, a strong military that defends liberty at home and abroad and an important and growing role on the international stage.

"Rather than heeding the false promise of a government-dominated economy, Poland sought to stimulate innovation, attract investment, expand trade and live within its means," he added.

It was thinly veiled criticism — one of several instances on the trip — of the policies Obama has pursued while in office, and Romney was slightly less veiled in a Fox News interview. He did not mention that joblessness in Poland is over 12 percent, roughly half again as much as in the United States.

While in Warsaw, Romney laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and paid tribute to the hundreds of thousands of Poles who died in a World War II uprising against the Nazis. Both are traditional gestures for dignitaries visiting Poland.

Advisers accompanying Romney said he would resume direct criticism of Obama's record soon enough, after observing a mini-moratorium while on foreign soil.

Yet a new television commercial suggested another immediate priority was to close a likeability gap in the polls. While the voting public generally believes Romney has better economic policies than Obama, it views the president in more favorable terms personally.

In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll completed on July 22, some 49 percent of registered voters said they had positive feelings toward Obama while 35 percent said the same about Romney.

In the same survey, 43 percent of registered voters said Romney would be better at dealing with the economy, while 37 percent said Obama would.

Shorn of any criticism of Obama, the ad appears designed to introduce Romney to voters in hotly contested states who know little or nothing about his personal background except what they've seen and heard in unflattering commercials aired by Democrats.

The U.S. president is not chosen by popular vote but in a series of state-by-state contests. With the race near deadlock for months, both candidates are aggressively courting a relative sliver of undecided voters who live in eight or so states that are neither reliably Republican nor Democratic.

In the ad, Romney speaks of his years in private business, in government and as the head of the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City a decade ago and says, "I want to use those experiences to help Americans have a better future."

The new Republican ad was a joint venture of the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Romney's campaign also sought to stir up interest in his looming vice presidential pick, unveiling an app for smartphones that officials said would "serve as the campaign's first official distribution channel" for the news of his choice. Separately, Republican officials noted an announcement could come any day.

As for one of the controversies on his trip, Romney said in the interview with Fox before leaving Europe that he hadn't been speaking about "the Palestinian culture or the decisions made in their economy" in his remarks earlier in the week that prompted one Palestinian official to question whether the Republican's views were racist.

At a fundraiser with Jewish donors in Jerusalem, Romney had said their culture was part of what had allowed them to be more economically successful than the nearby Palestinians. He made no mention of the fact that Israel has controlled the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem since capturing them in the 1967 war, a presence that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund both say limits the Palestinians' potential for economic growth.

In Poland as on other stops, Romney ignored shouted questions from reporters about his comments on Israel and the Palestinians. Asked why the former Massachusetts governor had responded to just three questions from American reporters during the trip, traveling press secretary Rick Gorka said, "Shove it."

The aide later called some journalists to apologize.

Aides later said that despite any mistakes made during the trip, there was little evidence they would materially affect the campaign.

"I don't think that will go down in history as very important," said campaign aide Stuart Stevens of possible missteps.

Nor is it likely that Romney will suffer politically from any clash with the news media, nor suffer damage among Jewish voters for comparing Israelis favorably with the Palestinians.

There were other uneven moments on what Romney and his aides had planned as an illustration of his ability to handle the world stage. In London, he drew a tart response from Prime Minister David Cameron after wondering aloud whether the British had adequately prepared for the Olympic Games now under way.

And in a speech in Jerusalem he declared that the city is the capital of Israel, even though the U.S. has its embassy in Tel Aviv and maintains a policy that the city's designation is a matter for negotiations between the Jewish state and Palestinians.

Not surprisingly, he got nothing but criticism from the president's surrogates.

Robert Gibbs, a senior Obama campaign adviser, called the trip "an embarrassing disaster" for Romney. "He both offended our closest ally and triggered a troubling reaction in the most sensitive region of the world."