Joan Walsh: "Which way for Obama?"

Joan Walsh (Salon):

In the last few months President Obama’s approval rating has steadily climbed, while he’s maintained a reliable if small lead over Republican Mitt Romney. Notwithstanding today’s Gallup daily tracking poll; daily tracking polls are meaningless. In the CNN poll also released Monday, he leads Romney 52-43 percent.

The question no one can answer definitively is why Obama’s fortunes improved after his miserable summer. Now that the race is a one-on-one contest, the debate over that question will intensify.

I’m of the oft-stated opinion that the president’s feistier populist rhetoric has driven his improved standing in the polls (more on why I think that shortly). But along comes the New York Times’ Bill Keller, with almost no data, to tell me I’m wrong. Keller insists Obama is turning off independents by being what he calls “a plutocrat-bashing firebrand” and pushing “Robin Hood” politics like the Buffett Rule. The source for Keller’s certainty? A recent poll by Third Way, a group that exists expressly to pull the Democratic Party to the right. MORE...