GOP chief: Romney is a likable guy

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TAMPA, Fla., Aug. 26 (UPI) -- The head of the Republican Party said a poll giving President Obama an edge in likeability and compassion didn't mean U.S. voters were repelled by Mitt Romney.

Reince Priebus brushed off the CNN poll as merely indicating Obama was favored in those categories by more people and was not an indictment of Romney's personality.

"It doesn't say that people think that Mitt Romney doesn't care about the middle-class and doesn't care about women, it just says in those polls there is an advantage," Priebus said on CNN's "State of the Union" as the GOP convention poised to begin in Tampa, Fla. "We have to tell the Mitt Romney story here next week. People are just getting to know Mitt Romney. Obama has been president for four years."

Priebus reiterated that the competency that really matters is his management of the economy. "I think we have got a really optimistic message for America," he said. "I think that we are coming out of this as the party that believes in the American dream."