Currently, and with no small amount of help from the media, the Obama campaign is running circles around the Romney campaign – smothering them in nonsense, distractions, lies, and audacious claims intentionally designed to be so outrageous they keep Team Romney off balance and on defense.

And, at least for now, it's working. We're entering week seven of Romney on defense and in the ever-reliable Real Clear Politics poll of polls, Obama is starting to pull ahead.

You can also bet the Obama campaign is just getting started. This is Chicago, folks, which means an endless bag of tricks -- the latest being this ad, which is already garnering media attention (putting the media focus back on Romney's taxes) and will trail Romney all along his upcoming bus tour:

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Dirty? Yep.

Dishonest? You betcha.

Effective? Definitely.

Who wins elections? The guy running the dirty campaign or the guy complaining about it?

The ad is more proof of my theory that the Obama campaign strategy works this way: The American people will forgive a dirty campaigner. At the very least he looks in charge, energetic, effective and pro-active. But if you don’t look like you can effectively run your own campaign, the people will not trust you to run the country.

And when the media refuses to hold Obama acountable for lying, you can get away with something like this.

Follow  John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC