WaPo/ABCPoll: Situation Normal, All Tied Up

Among likely voters, it's 49-48, edge Obama, but that's statistically meaningless. It's also virtually unchanged since their last one.

But among a wider sample of all registered voters, Obama holds an apparent edge, topping Romney at 50 percent to 44 percent, and has clear advantages on important issues in the campaign when compared with his rival.

And? What do all adults think? Note they're spending a lot more money to poll likely voters (it takes more calls to find a good number of likely voters) and yet seem to immediately discard the expensive, better, more predictive data they found, in favor of the cheaper, worse, less predictive data they like a bit better.

People keep talking about the "Freak Out." I don't think there's been a huge Freak Out, although you always know something's going on when people start pitching advice to Romney.

It's less a Freak Out that we've fallen -- maybe -- slightly behind than exasperation that something we've been expecting -- for people to realize This isn't working -- isn't happening.

The race appears tied, pretty much. This exasperates many of us -- like me -- because, 1, how the hell???? and 2, I'm getting psychologically burned out from being in a state of anticipation/anxiety.

And one big possible shift has gone and passed, as Krauthammer says.

The problem for Romney is that there were only four events [that] could change the course [of the race]: the three debates and the conventions, and he apparently squandered the first. …

They had an opportunity, particularly in the last night of the convention, which ended up as a strange night. The big problem that Romney has… is the empathy gap. The reason that Obama is still in the race is because everybody thinks he cares. That word appeared 1,000 times in the Democratic convention. And they were trying to show it [of Romney] in Tampa. They had some wonderful character witnesses who didn’t show up in [the] crucial 10:00 hour. Instead you had the Clint Eastwood show that monopolized all the water cooler discussion for three days. That’s a tactical error and that’s an opportunity that is.

Which is something that's been occurring to me a lot lately -- why not take these testimonials and make ads out of them? If the public didn't see it the first time, spend some money, give them more chances to see it.

Those testimonials were deeply affecting. I know on this site, most were saying stuff like "Why do I want to hear from these people?" and fifteen minutes later were crying.

Drew's Take: I posted just a moment or two after Drew. Here's his take on this.

He references WaPo's urgent citation of Registered Voters:

I'll take "Things That Don't Matter One Whit for a thousand Alex. What are, "registered voter polls two months out from an election?" But hey, WaPo/ABC have to cheer up the home team somehow.

As Ed points out at Hot Air, this poll shows Romney up 11% with independents.

It seems screwy that Romney could be up that much with indys and yet be basically even with Obama overall. I guess you have to believe after 4 years of No Hope and Change for the Worse Democrats are going to turn out in even greater numbers than 2008. Good luck with that.

Meanwhile, you can by my damn electoral College predictor phone app (now for iOS devices) and play with the numbers til your heart's content! Apple, Droid and Kindle versions for everyone!

posted by Ace at 12:44 PM

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