Obama Hit the Magic Number In Two Weekend Polls

[Playinghardball]

Business Insider: Though two weekend polls showed mixed results for the president, Barack Obama reached an important mark in both an ABC/Washington Post poll released Sunday night and a CNN poll released Friday. His approval rating hit 50 percent in both of them.

The 50-percent threshold is generally considered the point at which incumbents are safely re-elected. It’s the first time that Obama has hit the mark in the ABC/Post poll since April…

…. the 50-percent approval mark is a significant one, as Gallup managing editor Jeffrey M. Jones explained recently:

The 50% approval mark is significant because post-World War II incumbent presidents who have been above 50% job approval on Election Day were easily re-elected. Presidents with approval ratings below 50% have more uncertain re-election prospects….
Fronf on the Obama Diary

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. He knows what he's doing.......and so do we.

Keep hitting the Republicans where they hurt.......and they hurt in so many places!

[mikeysnot]

2. and bush was reelected with a what?

33% approval rating?

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. No, he was about 50% too, at this stage

See http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Approval-Center.aspx
Aug 22-24, 49%; Sep 2-4, 52% (the latter perhaps being after the Repub convention).

[monmouth]

3. I know this is shallow and off track but that particular photo of POTUS shows he is going

to be one helluva silver fox..Okay, I got it out of my system..

[Odin2005]

5. He's really going gray, isn't he? The stress must be enourmous.

[cemaphonic]

9. Presidents always do.

Even Bush aged 10 years in his first term, and he spent half of that on vacation.

[klook]

24. Clearin' brush is hard work! (n/t)

[tavalon]

32. It's the same with all of them

excepting Bush the Stupider, but he wasn't really doing the job anyway. It seems that they age about 3-4 years per year they put in. It has to be a hellish job. No sleep or little sleep.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Yeah - this past year has been rough. nt

[ncgrits]

16. I'm glad you said it! I was just thinking that our prez sure is handsome!

I wasn't going to say so, but since you went and did it . . . I did too!

[monmouth]

21. And those teeth. I mean, they are so perfect. Makes for that great smile..n/t

[tavalon]

33. I agree, though, he would do well to cover that until he's re-elected.

We don't want him looking tired. But yeah, he's gonna be one of those sexy silver foxes. Not that he isn't quite the handsome almost middle aged man. Of course, in the looks department, his gorgeous wife can run circles around him. But, I wouldn't care if he was ugly as sin with an ugly family to match if his policies would just take a hard left after the election.

This is not a close race. He will win and I hope he decides to have a better legacy than the first black President. He's so much more than that.

[monmouth]

35. That is why down-ticket races are so important. If he could have a congress to back him

so many wonderful things could come to fruition..

[Scuba]

4. Did they survey Diebold/ESS/Sequoia? No? Then don't relax!!!!

[renie408]

8. Can we smile a little? Or should we just remain iron jawed and steely eyed?

Good news is good news, so RELAX (even if just for a moment) and let yourself enjoy this!! We can go back to being EVER VIGILANT in 60 seconds....

[Scuba]

12. Smiling is permitted as long as work continues. Hey, were the Democrats, remember?

Seriously, polls are mostly worthless, or worse, except that one coming up in November. I think we're in for a very tough fight. We have to overcome Romney and Ryan (not too hard), Billionaires United (damn hard) and Diebold/ESS/Sequoia (harder yet).

There is no reason whatsoever to be overconfident.

[demosincebirth]

6. I hope so. The thought of republicans taking the White House along with those other crazies

is just not fathomable

[randome]

10. But what's this poll on the economy at TalkingPointsMemo mean?

I'm not trying to be alarmist but can someone tell me this is nothing to be worried about?

It says Romney holds a slight lead in being trusted to manage Medicare. I find that very difficult to believe.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/abc-wapo-poll-romney-has-slight-advantage-on

[JDPriestly]

14. The Republicans point to Obama's having cut the cost of Medicare.

That scares people. Obama needs to really, really push the information about what he has done on Medicare -- and he needs to back it up with specific facts that explain the numbers. I understand his explanation but it is too abstract, too difficult to understand. He needs to say I am saving this much money this way and this much money that way and here is how it will affect you. So we are rightfully suspicious.

The Romney/Ryan plan is horrible -- but they haven't been explicit about it yet.

And Obama needs to be much more explicit about how he is going to save money for Medicare.

[CarmanK]

27. WHY ARE THERE no WORDSMITHS in the DEM Party, Luntz seems to run away with conversation.

[reformist2]

11. He's done "good enough" in most voters' eyes.

We grade presidents on a pass/fail basis, and there's really no doubt Obama gets a pass.

[LynneSin]

15. This is the time of the election when Romney is suppose to be getting his big bump

Between his choice of VP and the convention, if Romney had a serious chance at winning he would show a bit of surge right now.

He's picked up a bit but still lagging behind Obama.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

20. He's desperate, hence, the return of the Politics of Race. He must have some internal

polling numbers showing him really losing becaues typically Race Politics don't kick into high gear until after the conventions and debates.

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. .

[Iliyah]

18. And it will get higher BUT y'know

the corporate media will have to throw a wench in by constantly spouting that Mittens is winning all swing states.

[tallahasseedem]

19. I love our President...

and I'm glad to see these polls but we have to fight like we're 10 points down. NO letting up!

[kimbutgar]

22. This AM I had on MSNBC and Luke Russert was talking about some poll showing

Rmoney over Obama 48 to 47. I thought this was strange and then I remembered that they have to ass kiss the repubs because of what Chris Matthews did to Reince Pervert. He had to follow the GOP talking points about how rmoney is in a virtual tie with rmoney and rmoney could win coming out of this convention. But poll and after poll shows rmoney is not likable and people are voting against Obama instead of voting for rmoney. Plus the repugs have pissed over woman, minorities, gays, and Muslims. Yeah sure.....

[flpoljunkie]

23. This poll has Obama/Biden beating Romney/Ryan 49% to 42% with adults. We need to register them!

[ananda]

25. Happy smiley!

[lindysalsagal]

26. Obama's got the youths, the females, the blacks and latinos, and all dog lovers.

Rmoney has the nasty mean white guy bigots.

We win!

[GallopingGhost]

29. And dumb women.

[tclambert]

28. The real magic number is 270.

(The number of electoral votes needed to win.) Nate Silver's poll analysis http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/ predicts Obama would win 299 electoral votes against Romney's 239, with Obama having a 63.9% chance of winning. RealClearPolitics http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html has Obama with 221, Romney with 181, and 136 as toss-ups (with Obama slightly ahead in most of those toss-up states).

[elleng]

30. THANKS!

[Vietnameravet]

31. Thanks

This is music to my ears but we all have to fight like we were loosing, never giving an inch or getting comfortable not even for a second.

To me this election is about more than protecting social security and Medicare and the increasing divide between the "haves" and the "have littles".. Its about whether a candidate can win with outright lies, catering to the absolute worst in human nature and supported by huge amounts of secret money funneled in by the likes of the Koch Brothers..

Its about what kind of people we are..

[wiggs]

34. While not irrelevant, this rule of thumb was not developed in

the era of citizens united, caging, voted ID laws. ,media consolidation, free Fox TV for every cable subscriber. and of a complete willingness of gop politicians to lie and obstruct.