âWe feel that we are in a very, very good place, that this race is exactly where we hoped it would be a week out,â said Russ Schriefer, a senior advisor to Mitt Romney, on a Wednesday conference call with reporters. Schriefer says the Romney campaign remains convinced that the fundamentals of the race favor the Republican, even as polls show the race remains tight in important swing states like Virginia, Ohio, and Iowa. Romney pollster Neil Newhouse explained the campaignâs view of the state of the race. âObama has a political environment problem, heâs got an intensity problem, heâs got an image problem, and heâs got a balance problem,â Newhouse said. And independents, he added, remain perhaps the most important voting bloc. âIf we expect the partisan edge to be significantly narrowed on Tuesday, then the race is going to come down to independents,â Newhouse said, and that means advantage, Romney. âItâs simply cold, hard math. In 23 of the 25 national polls released in the last monthâ¦Mitt has led among independentsâ¦by 7 points.â Schriefer said there are âa lot of states in playâ for Romney to pick up outside of those generally regarded as âswing,â including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Barack Obama, he said, is âstuck well below the 50 percent threshold in almost every mark that you can takeâ in many of these states. Schriefer also touted Romneyâs newfound favorability advantage compared to Obama. The Romney campaign and conservative super PACs like American Crossroads and Restore our Future have begun purchasing airtime in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, a move that Obama campaign manager Jim Messina Tuesday called a âdesperate play.â Republicans havenât won Pennsylvania and Michigan since 1988 and havenât won Minnesota since 1972. But Schriefer said some of those states are winnable for Romney. http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/romney-campaign-fundamentals-favor-us_659921.html