As a new Rasmussen national poll puts Republican Presidential nominee ahead of Barack Obama 49 to 48, ABC News’Amy Walter takes a stand-back look at the race from within the new context of the defeat Obama Obama suffered in his Denver debate with GOPer Mitt Romney and concludes the “fundamentals still favor Obama.” Here are some chunks of her analysis:

1) Voters are feeling (somewhat) better about the economy and direction of the country.

BLS Conspiracy theorists take note: Americans were feeling better about the state of the economy and Obama’s handling of it before the jobs report came out.

This is not to say that Americans think the economy is rockin’. Or that the president is doing a tremendous job of putting it back on solid footing. But, they don’t think the economy is as bad today as it was a year ago. And, a small — but growing number — think it’s getting better…

….2) Despite frustration with Obama, Romney is not seen as better able to handle the economy.

A majority of voters continue to disapprove of the job Obama is doing on the economy. But, they are less disappointed in him than they used to be. And, they don’t see Romney as able to do any better.

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll showed 47 percent approved and 52 percent disapproved of the job the president was doing on the economy. That is the strongest the president has been on this question since the summer of 2010 and a 10 point improvement since last fall.

Meanwhile, voters’ confidence that Romney will do a better job on the economy has dropped significantly between August and September…

….3) Electoral map is shrinking, not expanding.

Despite earlier predictions by the Romney campaign that they would be competitive in traditionally blue states like Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, they are putting no serious effort into any of them. Moreover, the Paul Ryan pick gave Romney only a short-lived bounce in Wisconsin. The latest polls in the Badger State show Obama with a healthy advantage in the state.

This has left Romney has a very narrow path to 270, and no room for error…

….4) Romney’s image problem.

Thanks to the efforts of millions of dollars of negative advertising over the summer by Obama and his allies, and little to no effort by Romney to rebut them, Romney entered the fall campaign with more people feeling unfavorably toward him than favorably. Voters see Obama as better able to understand the economic problems of regular people and more in tune with the concerns of the middle class……

…..5) The Money Gap

Obama’s $181 million haul last month is impressive. More important, however, is the fact that his campaign has been smart in how they spend it. As the New York Times reported last week, the Obama team has been able to stretch their dollars further thanks to a sophisticated ad buying strategy. This has meant that even as Republicans (Romney plus the outside independent groups supporting him) have outspent the Democrats (Obama plus his independent group allies) by more than $40 million on TV ads since April, Obama and his allies have run 35,000 more ads. Outside groups have to pay a higher rate for ads than the campaigns do. This means that these groups have to spend a lot more money to get the same number of ads on the air./..

But, she notes, “Despite Obama’s structural advantages, this race is far from over.”

Indeed, the National Journal notes some of the slide in the polls for Obama:

A new poll shows a slight change in the presidential race immediately following Wednesday night’s debate in Denver, with a 4-point lead for President Obama the day before the debate becoming a 1-point deficit the day after his uninspiring peformance.

On Tuesday, the Washington, D.C.-based Clarus Research Group surveyed 590 likely voters and found Obama leading Mitt Romney, 49 percent to 45 percent. On Thursday, Clarus found, in an identical number of interviews, that Romney had inched ahead by 1 point, 47 percent to 46 percent.

Obama’s support slipped by 3 points and Romney’s ticked up by 2 points. Because the margin of error for each survey is plus-or-minus 4 percentage points, the change between the two polls is not statistically significant. Additionally, conducting a poll only in one day can introduce additional sources of error.

And in Wisconsin, Talking Points Memo reports:

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has closed the gap in Wisconsin after his strong debate performance on Wednesday night. President Obama edges him by a 2-point margin in the state, 49 percent to Romney’s 47 percent, in a new poll from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP). Obama had a lead outside the margin of error in PPP’s mid-September poll, 52 percent to Romney’s 45 percent.

Wisconsin voters think Romney won the debate by a 61 percent to 25 percent margin, and it seems to have helped Romney on his personal rating — he’s now seen favorably by 49 percent of likely voters, while unfavorably by 48 percent. That’s up from a negative 44 percent favorable, 51 percent unfavorable split last month.

But TPM points us to this page that shows Obama still having a four point lead over Romney in Colorado. Even so, just look at the graph on that page of how Obama’s polling has declined and Romney’s has gone up — creating a dead heat since what has become to become known as Obama’s debacle in Denver.

Looking foward, Time’s Mark Halperin offers some questions which we will run in full here since they are worth pondering as you read this and other news and posts until election day:

When will we get some big sample battleground state polls that will truly show us the post-Denver trend?

Given the jobs numbers, the relatively light campaign schedules, and the news realities of the weekend, the winner of Saturday/Sunday news cycles will probably be who performs best on the Sunday shows. So: who has the better surrogates going in booked on programs and who will actually deliver?

Is the “new” Mitt Romney going to be on offer through Election Day, or might he backslide? And, if the new model sustains through at least Monday, how will it impact the deliver and reception of his foreign policy speech.

Was the Obama TV ad released Saturday morning as carefully focus grouped as most of Chicago’s spots are?

Is playing the Big Bird card presidential (even with a larger point behind it)?

Is Paul Ryan’s goal to win the debate or just not lose it?

Who will deliver to Joe Biden the most unvarnished private version of “don’t say anything untoward” before Thursday’s vice presidential debate?

How does the Romney campaign assume the President will behave in the next debate and how does Romney game out reacting to that?

Are there any Colin Powell-type endorsements waiting to drop

Most important: what message will Barack Obama try to drive between now and the next debate?

My own questions I’m waiting to see answered:

1. Is this indeed the “new” Mitt Romney, leaping back into the center to where he was as Massachusetts Governor — a very political individual who had his finger on the polls and what his potential customers wanted to hear but not a lock step member of the talk radio political culture?

2. Will conservative Republicans who absolutely insisted in primaries that they demanded the party nominate someone who ran on, defended, and proudly and not defensively articulated clearly conservative principles and didn’t fudge them. continue to show what it clearly going on: conservatives have put these demands on hold (expediency always trumps principle in American policy) since they want Romney to WIN. Then isn’t it worth asking: wouldn’t it have been just EASIER and more productive if Republican conservatives and breast-beating talk show hosts had allowed Romney to move to the center in June rather insist he stick to principles that they would later quietly (and glaringly) place in suspended animation when faced with the probability of a GOP Presidential candidate’s defeat?

3. How much does Obama want to be President? It’s not just about fire in the belly. It’s about offering a product as advertised. The Obama at the debate wasn’t the one donors had bankrolled.

4. Is Camp Obama ready to not only have Obama prepped for the next debate, but prepped in a way that they can deal with whatever incarnation shows up? Are they ready in a town hall forum to witness Romney getting personal, perhaps even tearing up? You can see this one coming a mile away…since The Politico notes that since the debate Romney has been auditioning to be “Healer in Chief.”

Nate Silver on the polls so far:

More broadly, although it is clear that Mr. Romney has made gains, it is still too early to tell how long-lasting they might be. Many of the polls that showed the sharpest swing toward Mr. Romney were conducted on Thursday, immediately after the debate and on a very unfavorable day of news coverage for Mr. Obama, and will not yet reflect any change in voter sentiment from Friday morning’s favorable jobs report.

Still, as I wrote yesterday, my guess is that the forecast model is still being somewhat too conservative about accounting for the change in the environment. In a good number of the polls, Mr. Romney has not only improved his own standing but also taken voters away from Mr. Obama’s column, suggesting that he has peeled off some of Mr. Obama’s softer support in addition to gaining ground among undecided voters.

The bottom line: the debate has made it clear how much Mitt Romney wants it. Can Obama show by his arguments, energy, and agility if tossed a curb ball during the debates or campaign that he wants it as much — or more? Or will we still see the guy SNL satirized?

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JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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