A lot of hand-wringers have pooh-poohed the Obama campaign's relentless focus on Mitt Romney as a vulture capitalist/out-sourcer-in-chief/suit-who-fired-your-dad etc. I find this strange since it's obvious that Romney's private sector experience as a man who made a fortune off private equity is relevant. Romney has made it a central piece of his appeal. And when pieces like the Washington Post's recent expose reveal an enthusiasm for out-sourcing jobs abroad to help profit margins, Obama would be guilty of electoral malpractice if he didn't jump on them. And so we have the above ad and others now showing in the swing states of Ohio, Virginia and Iowa.

And guess what? In so far as we can judge the impact of these anti-Bain ads in the swing states, they appear to be working, especially with the white working-class voters Romney desperately needs. Here's the data from the latest NBC/WSJ poll:

The president’s advantage widens in the states typically considered up for grabs — Obama leads by 8 points (50 percent to 42 percent) in a combined sample of voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

"Also in these swing states, Romney’s favorability numbers have dropped, possibly reflecting the toll the negative Obama TV advertisements are having on the former Massachusetts governor in these battlegrounds," MSNBC’s FirstRead blog wrote. Those attacks include a sustained critique of Romney’s time at Bain Capital, the private equity firm that he co-founded.

The last month has, on the surface, been dreadful for the Obama campaign, and tomorrow's possible destruction of the ACA by SCOTUS would be the icing on a toxic cake. But, in fact:

The swing state results led Republican pollster Bill McInturff to conclude that "it's been more of a problematic month from May to June for Romney" (McInturff conducts the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll along with Democrat Peter Hart).

Hence this:

This is why most of the polling outfits show Obama with a solid electoral college lead, while the race is still nationally very tight in terms of the popular vote. Maybe the swing states will come more into line with the national averages over time. But Romney shouldn't be having favorables dropping at this point in key states, should he? And it would be nice if his favorables once managed to get above the unfavorables. But it appears he is being defined. Advantage: Obama.