I’ll just say I find the number implausible given recent events, including Benghazi, Slackergate (ie, the president who let his dog eat his debate homework) and the general ridicule his Big Bird Insurgency has received on both left and right. He’s looking more feeble now than he ever did and his approvals edge upward?

So I’ll go back to my first point in the previous post: 51% of the 9% who actually answer pollster phone calls now think the president is doing a good job. What that means in terms of the actual voters I would submit remains to be statistically justified.

1. Presumably Rasmussen is dealing with the same issue that is being noted across all polling which is that the success rate of poll participants answering pollster calls is now less than 10%, which I think pretty much undermines the claim that the sample represents the population of voters generally. But I do agree that Rasmussen is about as sober an institution as there is in polling, I just think, even if your methods are objective, that the noise in this data is overwhelming whatever signal there may be.

2. I think after Nov 7 we’re going to find that the election didn’t turn on the question of Obama’s likability, but whether Romney succcessfully gave independent voters a reason to think he provides a better alternative to the policies that, according to focus groups of independants that I have read about, are profoundly dissatisfied with Obama’s record the last four years despite finding him likable. My assertion is that Romney is successfully fulfilling that challenge. I think this election will prove unique in that it will be determined more by how compelling the policy claims of the candidates prove, rather than personality.

Pseudoplotinus, Rasmussen (presumably not a den of weenies who buckled to liberal pressure), shows Obama with a job approval rating of 51% and a lead of +1 on the head-to-head. As long as Obama’s job approval ratings hover at 50% it is going to be difficult to impossible for Romney to build a substantial and durable lead. He can win, but unless Obama’s job approval number comes down, there is little chance of a 1980-style break in the direction of the challenger.

“Final point: We absolutely, positively must remember polling in 2012 is politicized as never before, and it is incumbent upon the consumers of political polls not to accept the data naïvely, but to perform due diligence to see what goes into the product.”

-Jay Cost, Weekly Standard, in today’s article which you can find here:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-politics-and-gallup-poll_654143.html?page=2

Like I said before, we are flying blind. Pete should atleast list the assumptions underlying these poll treatments because they are becoming laughable.