Close to the end (double entendre intended)

By Richard K. Barry

Despite the fact that Obama didn't hit the ball out of the park with his convention speech, and a middling jobs report, all three tracking polls show he is expanding his lead over Mitt Romney.

Man, nothing is easy.

Gallup: Obama 49%, Romney 45%

Reuters/Ipsos: Obama 47%, Romney 43%

Rasmussen: Obama 46%, Romney 44%

According to Political Wire, it should be noted that much of this data was compiled before the key speeches at the DNC, which suggests to Nate Silver that "Obama has been running about 7-9 points ahead of Romney since the Clinton speech to have gained ground so quickly."

In related news, Politico is reporting that top Romney advisors are conceding that:

President Barack Obama heads out of the national political conventions with a much clearer path to winning.

The Romney campaign, while pleasantly surprised by Obama’s lackluster prime-time performance, said the post-convention bounce they hoped for fell well short of expectations and privately lament that state-by-state polling numbers — most glaringly in Ohio — are working in the president’s favor.

Maybe the most interesting comment of the past few days comes from Obama advisor David Axelrod in an interview with the Washington Post, who said this:

[C]onditions in the country militate against any major movement in the polls. While predicting that Obama would win a second term, he said, “I don’t think the structure of the race allows for a big breakthrough.

It looks like everything will limp along to election day in time for a close finnish, just like we always thought.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)