It's the economy, stupid -- sort of

By Richard K. Barry

Greg Sargent noticed an interesting trend in recent polling for the presidential election. For quite a while, polls have been showing that voters thought Mitt Romney would do a better job handling the economy than President Obama. But not so much anymore.

He writes:

Well, we now have four national polls that show Obama and Romney tied on the question — perhaps suggesting a potentially signfiicant shift in the race's dynamics:

• The new Fox News poll shows Obama and Romney exactly tied at 46-46 on who would better improve the economy and create jobs.
• This week's CNN poll finds Obama and Romney in a statistical tie, 50-49, on who would better handle the economy.
• This week's Post poll finds Obama and Romney in a statistical tie, 47-45, on the same question. 
• A Rasmussen poll on Tuesday found Obama and Romney at 47-45 on who is more trusted on job creation.

As Sargent states:

This again raises the question of whether Romney's basic theory of this race — that it's inevitable that Obama will lose, because voters will conclude that he failed on the economy and will opt for an alternative that clears the most basic threshold of acceptability — is fundamentally flawed. As I keep saying here, it's possible that the true undecided voters may not be concluding Obama failed and are merely disappointed that Obama has not been able to make the recovery go faster but find that understandable, given the severity of the crisis and the depth of our problems.

No one has a magic wand that is going to fix things and, as Sargent concludes:

[Voters] may be open to the argument that Romney doesn't have the answers and that Obama’s approach — despite their disappointment — has at least as good or even a better a chance of working over the long haul.

Sounds reasonable, and the polling trend would seem to support it.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)