I think you grossly overdiscussed the term "underdog" as having socioeconomic overtones that clearly don't apply here. In a society that is so over-influenced by sports images, at this point in a political race it can simply mean the campaign that is down in the polls but for some reason (or for that reason) is more worthy than its opponent. Of course in these days of Citizens United, not to mention Romney's abundant wealth (and accompanying mindset) he is ONLY an underdog in the polling sense (which of course in the end, fortunately, is the only sense that will matter in the end ...)

So the blame for the degraded quality of our political discourse belongs to Lee Atwater's predecessors. Do we know if he studied them?

were they influenced by Edward Bernays? He had a huge influence on commercial advert.