Washington: With less than 100 days to go for the crucial US Presidential Elections and the latest opinion polls reflecting a dead heat between Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney, the incumbent President's top aide on Sunday acknowledged that it will be a close race.
"I think this is going to be a very close race throughout it. That's what we've prepared for. That's why we're investing in a grassroots army to win this race on Election Day," Robert Gibbs, top Obama Campaign adviser, told the ABC news.
Gibbs, before leaving for the Campaign served as the White House Press Secretary for the first two years of Obama's current term.
The latest Gallup Poll has reflected a tie between Obama and Romney.
According to RealClearPolitics, which keeps track of all the opinion polls, Obama has a slender lead of 1.6 point over Romney in an average of all the opinion polls.
Of the top seven recent polls, Obama leads in six of them, even though it is by a small margin, while Romney is leading in only one.
However, the Obama Campaign exuded confidence that the US President would be able to make it through the November 6 elections even if it is going to be close.
"I think what's going to break this race out ultimately is the choice between two candidates and two extremely different visions about how we build this economy and how we come out of the economic disaster that we were in and how we recover," Gibbs argued.
"I think, whether or not -- you're going to have that choice of whether Barack Obama, who wants to invest in education, invest in entrepreneurs, cut taxes on small businesses, and build our economy here, or somebody in Governor Romney, whose expertise, quite frankly, is in outsourcing and offshoring," he said.
Kevin Madden, the adviser of the Romney Campaign, agreed with Gibbs that it is going to be a close campaign, but vouched that it is Romney who would ultimately win the elections.
"I do believe that this is a very close race and it will continue to be a close race. I think what's going to make a big difference is how the American public judges the last three-and-a-half years and whether or not the economy has gotten better in these last three-and-a-half years," he said.
"I think that's where we do see this sort of crystallisation between the two candidates. I do think it is a choice, and I do think it's a choice about how we go forward. This is a president who sort of abandoned, really, any idea of offering the public any new ideas about getting out of the current economic stagnation," he said.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, July 29, 2012, 21:09