Look, the new Pew poll caught the race in the middle of a Romney bounce and a wave of Romney enthusiasm, which is why a lot more Republicans were willing to answer Pew's questions than in previous polls, and why Romney leads the poll by 4. Gallup had a poll out today showing Obama up by 5, and, as Kos notes, even Rasmussen shows Romney coming back to earth -- but the press and blogosphere and Twittersphere are ignoring those polls and obsessing over Pew.
This just tells me that the press is, for the moment, on Romney's side -- that's the real story here. Yes, I think Romney got a bounce, but I think the bounce brought the race more or less to parity, which is where it is in the Real Clear Politics poll average. (Talking Points Memo still has Obama up by 2.7 -- and oh, look, Mitt's still down by nearly 4 in RAND's multiple-decimal-point poll.)* I'm sorry, but Romney hasn't done anything to build on that strong debate -- his foreign policy speech was a flop, and no one except his base wants to hear a Republican rabble sabers. It will worry me if we're still talking Obama's-in-trouble by the end of the week, and it will worry me if Obama and Biden have any more bad debates. But Mitt Romney is still a weak candidate. Obama's advertising and messaging have defined him as such, as have Romney's own words and deeds. Polls in the next few days should confirm that.
ALSO, TOO: This.
So the Pew poll really is a huge data point for Romney. But his polling today was pretty mediocre without it.
— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) October 8, 2012
*****
*UPDATE: I had this wrong -- TPM has Romney up by 2.7. But take out the one Pew poll and it's Obama up by 2.1. I don't understand the weighting -- the Pew poll is the only poll of the past seven listed at TPM that has Romney in the lead, and yet Romney's in the lead. That tells me TPM's average will settle to parity or an Obama lead later this week.
