The new Bloomberg poll showing Barack Obama up 13 points over Mitt Romney is an obvious outlier. But it is prodding me again to a question that has been nagging at me the past few weeks: how is that Obama is not in truly serious trouble? All the talk recently has been of Obama’s prospects slipping, with him now only a couple points ahead of Romney, at best, in most polls. But he should be slipping! The economy, after showing signs of a solid recovery just a few months ago, is gasping for air again, and there may be worse on the way. This should be disastrous for the incumbent. Yet he’s very much in this thing. Part of this surely has to do with the dynamic that Team Obama is dearly banking on: many voters still blame Obama’s predecessor for the hard times. Part of it also has to do with Obama’s personal likability (which defies the deathless Beltway caricature of him as distant and aloof.)
But there’s no getting around it: a huge part of it must have to do with his lackluster opposition. Ask yourself: if the other side had settled on a truly generic Republican—that is, a moderately conservative fellow, a senator or governor or former governor who came without the trappings of Bain Capital and car elevators and dressage tax deductions and Romneycare and the serial flip-flopping and “America the Beautiful,” how would that candidate be faring right now?
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