If you surf the web a lot (like I do) and travel a lot in the car (like I have the past 9 months) and listen to tons of talk radio and cable new shows on all the networks (as I do on XM Radio) there has been a kind of smug attitude among many Democrats that in the end they’ll hold the White House. It reminds me of the attitude Democrats had when Ronald Reagan ran for President, like “There’s no way on election day that when the votes are counted Americans will elect this guy!” The atittude is still there.
But there are now warnings. The first warning was from Democratic political maven James Carville who warned the Dems to “Wake Up” in this CNN column that I’ve linked to many times.
And now comes this TPM piece that features Romney’s past opponents warning the Democrats that he could indeed win.
All of this comes as good news to GOPers who did the Anybody But Romney Dance…but they are now waltzing quickly into his corner which is why his polls will start getting even tighter.
And the fight Democrats will have to retain the White House will get even tougher.
Plus there’s this Gallup Poll that suggests its time to stop talking about Barack Obama having a huge edge over Romney when it comes to likeability:
Fifty percent of Americans now have a favorable opinion of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, up from 39% in February and his highest by 10 percentage points. His current 41% unfavorable rating, though, leaves him with a net score of +9, after being at -8 in February. In roughly half of the 28 measurements Gallup has taken of Romney since 2006, more Americans have viewed him negatively than positively.
The spike in Romney’s favorable rating in the May 10-13 USA Today/Gallup poll is predictable, given that he has become the presumptive Republican nominee. Presidential candidates typically get a spike in their favorable ratings in the wake of winning the nomination. Gallup’s prior measurement of Romney, in February, came as Rick Santorum was surging in the polls after a series of primary and caucus wins that made him Romney’s main challenger.
Republicans and independents are fueling the rise in Romney’s favorable rating, with Democrats’ views of him unchanged. Eighty-seven percent of Republicans now view him favorably, up from 65% in February. His favorable rating among independents is 11 points higher, and independents now view Romney more positively (48%) than negatively (43%).
You can also now see Team Romney try to slowly pivot away from the kinds of verbiage — in its first major campaign ad, at least — that he hurled during the campaign that often sounded like rip and read old Tea Party rally quotes or scripts written by the execrable Sean Hannity. This shows a careful tip toe to the center in the way it is stated rather than the actual policies:
Why is Romney’s popularity increasing? Here are five theories.
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.