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Obama? Romney? Flip a Coin

Not much in the just-released NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conflicts with the story line that we’re going to see a lot of close races this fall. Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican poll-taker Bill McInturff found that 48 percent of the 1,000 American adults interviewed (including a subsample of cell-phone users) approve of the job that President Obama has done. This percentage is 2 points short of the 50 percent approval rating that would signal he is a favorite for reelection. A rating below 46 percent suggests that a president is toast. Obama is right in the middle—in the 47 percent to 49 percent zone—suggesting an equal chance of winning or losing.

One source of good news for Democrats is that Obama draws a 51 percent approval rating on foreign policy; the bad news is that voters don’t seem likely to vote on foreign-policy matters this year. Conversely, the president got his worst approval rating on the economy: Just 43 percent approve of his handling of economic matters while 52 percent disapprove. Unfortunately for Democrats, the economy is the issue that does seem to be of paramount importance to voters.

Institutionally, Obama and ...

Crowds vs. Experts

To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of Intrade, the Iowa Electronic Markets, or any of the other online prediction markets. People go to these sites and trade contracts or positions (read: take bets) on whether a given event will occur, such as which party will control the House or Senate (to the extent that anyone can control the Senate) after the next election, or which candidate will win the presidential race. The theory of collective intelligence—the rationale for paying attention to sites such as Intrade—was made by James Surowiecki in his 2004 book, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations.

My bias is to listen to the experts. I am more likely to pay attention to a crowd if the crowd is composed of political analyst Stu Rothenberg, NBC Political Director Chuck Todd, and about a dozen other folks whose opinions I respect rather than a random mass of people who have their own opinions, often times with little to back them up.

Pros have enormous amounts of experience and background knowledge about a subject. Rothenberg, Todd, and other ...

Lugar’s Downfall

One way to explain Sen. Richard Lugar’s loss to state Treasurer Richard Mourdock in this week’s Indiana Republican primary is to attribute it to a tea party takeover of the GOP. A second explanation is that a venerable public servant overstayed his welcome and ran for reelection one time too many. A third is that Lugar was too focused on international relations and grew too distant from his state—that he didn’t keep his political fences mended back home.

The fact is, all three factors contributed to Lugar’s defeat. To put too much weight on any one reason is too convenient. The end result is that one of the serious adults in Congress, a real statesman, won’t be coming back. It isn’t a surprise to those watching his race; the signs had been apparent for some time.

Although there certainly was an ideological component to Lugar’s loss, his defeat was not as ideologically focused as, say, the ouster of then-GOP Sen. Robert Bennett two years ago in Utah. Lugar’s detractors had no single lightning-rod issue to hurl against him, in the way that Bennett’s vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program ...

Iran, the Wild Card

One distinct possibility in this election year has always been that a major international incident, very possibly in the Middle East, could push a close presidential election decisively in one direction or the other. An air strike by Israel, the United States, or both, against Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear-weapons capability has been the most widely speculated flash point in the region.

Over the past year, Republican presidential candidates have frequently talked about Iran on the campaign trail. More than a few members of the pro-Israel community in the United States see President Obama as an unreliable ally. They view him as much less supportive of Israel than President George W. Bush was.

The GOP presidential contenders, with the exception of Rep. Ron Paul, attacked Obama relentlessly on the subject. Just a few months ago, it seemed entirely plausible that Obama could get boxed into supporting such an attack on Iran whether he wanted to or not.

An international incident, particularly an attack in the Middle East, could have a huge, but unpredictable, effect on the race between Obama and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney. The very real possibility of a clash with Iran, the general political ...

Election Rests on the Economy

Regular readers of this column know that in analyzing the 2012 presidential race, I have been preoccupied—some would say obsessed—with the state and direction of the U.S. economy. Presidential elections have many moving parts and can turn on many things, but rarely is a single factor more important than the economy when an incumbent is up for reelection.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted among 1,000 adults from April 13-17, supports that view. Overall, 49 percent said they approve of the job that President Obama is doing, and 46 percent said they disapprove. The poll, conducted by Democrat Peter Hart and Republican Bill McInturff, pegs Obama’s approval rating just 1 point higher than the current averages by RealClearPolitics and Huffpost’s Pollster.com, as well as the Gallup tracking average, for the week of April 16-22. Not much disparity there.

Obama’s lead in the horse race with Mitt Romney was 6 points in the NBC/WSJ poll, 49 percent to 43 percent. His advantage was a little less in some of the other surveys. RealClearPolitics pegged Obama’s lead at 3.7 points; Pollster reported 2.7 points. For April 18-23 ...