John Sides, a political science professor at George Washington University, says comments perceived as game changers by the media haven't swayed voters much.

"No discernible or certainly consequential movement because of Obama’s two 'gaffes' (in 2008)," he wrote online. "The only movement after Romney’s comments about the Libya attack is in his favor, thanks largely to the probably inevitable tightening after Obama’s convention bump."

The video with Romney's comments released Monday "shows a candidate with real opinions and a clear-eyed campaign strategy," writes the Globe and Mail.

"But the problem with those opinions is two-fold. First, it leads to the inevitable question of whether Mr. Romney was merely telling hard-core conservative donors what they wanted to hear by slamming the '47 percent' of Americans who are 'dependent on government.'

That would be bad enough. But the second point is that if Mr. Romney was really channeling his own views on Americans who consider themselves 'victims' and “entitled to health-care, to food, to housing, to you name it, then he may really be the heartless Monty Burns the Obama campaign has depicted in its savaging TV ads."