Earlier, I posted about a new poll showing Obama in the lead over Romney among Catholics. Now, a Fox News poll is showing Obama leading Romney in a tight race among voters overall, but particularly women and independents.
Fox News, via Memeorandum:
An increase in support from women as well as independents gives Barack Obama a post-convention advantage over challenger Mitt Romney. The president receives a five percentage-point bounce among women and a 12-point bounce among independents, in a Fox News poll released Wednesday.
Overall, the Obama-Biden ticket tops the Romney-Ryan ticket by 48 to 43 percent among likely voters. The president’s advantage is within the poll’s margin of sampling error.
That’s a four-point “convention bounce” for Obama among likely voters. Before the conventions, Romney edged Obama by one point (45-44 percent, August 19-21, 2012).
Ed Morrissey asks if this election is like 1979. I think the answer to that would be no. As much as conservatives might like for the situation in Cairo now to be the political equivalent of Carter’s Iran fiasco, it isn’t because people are different. People do not have the same values that they had in 1979. Rick Santorum hammered Barack Obama’s Middle East policies today on the Scott Hennen show, like only he can, but when asked if this is like 1979, Santorum rightly responded, “This country is much more divided than it was back in 1980 and the reason is that it is more culturally divided than it was in 1980.”
In other words, don’t get your hopes up that we can expect national outrage on the level that we saw back in 1979. Mitt Romney should not merely try to play-act and pretend that he is Ronald Reagan and that this is 1979. Neither should the conservative blogosphere get their hopes up that this could be politically damaging for Obama. We should all look at the situation as it is and respond in the best way for the good of our country.
It appears to me that Mitt Romney is having a moment like John McCain did when the economy collapsed. How he handles himself in the face of these events in the Middle East could make him or break him. As the recent polling shows, he has some ground to make up.
