BUMP EXPANDS – AT 9:50 A.M. ET:  It simply cannot be denied.  The Democrats did a vastly superior job of presenting themselves than did the Republicans, resulting in a sizable bump.  In addition, press bias, on full display, is playing its role.

Rasmussen reports that Obama is now four points ahead of Romney.  Romney was two points ahead of Obama before the GOP convention.  That is a gain of six for the president.  Just as important, Obama's approval rating is now at 52%, enough to win the election.  From Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows President Obama attracting support from 49% of voters nationwide, while Mitt Romney earns 45% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and three percent (3%) are undecided...

...This is the president’s biggest lead over Romney among Likely Voters since March 17.  Obama’s convention bounce is evident both in the head-to-head numbers with Romney and in his Job Approval ratings ...

...The president has made significant gains among voters aged 40-64...

Those are the people most concerned about getting Medicare and Social Security.

The president’s bounce began the night after Bill Clinton spoke to the convention and received rave reviews. Sixty-six percent (66%) of voters nationwide have a favorable opinion of the former president...

...A president’s job approval rating is one of the best indicators for assessing his chances of reelection. Typically, the president’s job approval rating on Election Day will be close to the share of the vote he receives. Currently, 52% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's job performance. That’s his highest approval rating in more than a year-and-a-half, since January 2011.

COMMENT:  Obviously, we will have to see this week if this bump continues.  Some of the polling for the surveys out today was done after the jobs figures were released on Friday, but they seem to have had no effect.  Pollsters tell us it takes about a week before economic news is fully absorbed.

But clearly, this is not good news.  The people of the country liked what they saw in Charlotte.  It was hokum, pure hokum, well delivered.  What's worse, it was a raw scare campaign...but scare campaigns work.  They always have. 

Now we're told that Obama will try to switch the discussion from jobs to Social Security and Medicare.  That seems to work.  It's pure scare tactics. 

Romney/Ryan haven't done much in the past three days.  No great message.  Nothing to throw the Dems off.

Clearly, the addition of Bill Clinton to the Obama campaign has been powerful.

It's been pointed out that Carter was four points ahead of Reagan in 1980, but that Reagan won by nine.  We hope it happens again, but Romney isn't Reagan.  And the country Reagan ran in is very different from the America of today.  When Reagan ran, men who were young in World War II were still in their 50s, only middle-aged.  Today we are ruled by the sixties generation and younger. 

There is work to do.

September 9, 2012