No worries. The little Eeyore on my shoulder is tired after yesterday’s post so I’m not going to try to talk you onto the ledge over this one. It’s undeniably good news — 50/45 is perfectly in line with nearly all the other recent polls, excluding that We Ask America survey that had Walker by nine. And right now, the only potentially vote-shifting news on the wires has to do with Walker’s opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, bragging about crime stats that may in fact have been falsified by the PD. Everything’s coming up Scotty!

Well, not quite everything:

Note the trend in that second data set. The public doesn’t quite buy Walker’s explanation that this is chiefly about taxpayer money either:

And yet, his job approval has bounced from 38 percent in the fall to a healthy 52 percent now. I’d been treating this election as a de facto referendum on the collective bargaining law but evidently that’s way too simplistic. The public appears to be lukewarm about it at best but still fairly solidly committed to retaining Walker. Any theories as to why, Wisconsinites? I’m thinking it has to do with rosier jobs numbers, or possibly an expression of massive voter frustration with the interminable recall shenanigans that the state’s had to deal with for more than a year. Maybe some fencesitters are breaking for Walker to send a message that this nonsense has to end, once and for all. (That was part of the reason for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s surprising endorsement.) What else am I missing?