By Dave Andrusko
Rick and Karen Santorum, with their daughter, Bella
We end this week’s edition of National Right to Life News Today with our customary once-over look at the latest polling data. By way of summary, regardless of what you may hear or read about President Obama’s advantage over Republican presidential candidates, his support is, at best, shaky. In addition there is good news for both former Gov. Mitt Romney and former Senator Rick Santorum.
With the Michigan and Arizona primaries coming up next Tuesday, let’s talk about the two pro-life Republican presidential candidates first.
Mitt Romney
There has never been any mystery in Arizona: Mr. Romney remains comfortably ahead—by an average of 9.2 points among the polls summarized by Real Clear Politics. But the contest in Michigan remains competitive.
Santorum jumped to a big lead in Michigan right after his Trifecta of victories in Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri. However, that is no longer the case with the latest two polls (Rasmussen Reports and Mitchell/Rosetta Stone) showing Romney up by 6 and 3 points, respectively.
There are two pieces of good news for Santorum. Rasmussen’s first poll of likely GOP primary voters in Oklahoma shows him with a 2-1 lead over former Speaker Newt Gingrich–43% to 21%.
In addition, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll “shows that his popularity among GOP women has moved up 13 points since January, with the biggest bump in the past week, so that 57 percent hold a favorable view. Santorum is now within reach of Romney on that score: Sixty-one percent of Republican women view Romney favorably.”
As for the President, two interrelated points. The headline in a story in POLITICO yesterday read,” Presidential approval not keeping pace with increased consumer confidence, poll shows.”
“Quinnipiac released a poll Thursday showing that 54 percent believe the economy is getting better, compared with 28 percent who thought that in September. Obama’s job approval, meanwhile, has remained relatively stagnant in recent months, going from 44 percent in November to 45 percent now. His disapproval rate is the same at 49 percent.
“’Voters have begun to change their minds about the economy,’ Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement released with the poll. ‘But President Barack Obama is not singing along as there is little uptick in his job approval numbers and the share of voters who think he deserves a second term in the Oval Office.’”
But an in-house warning may carry more weight with President Obama’s re-election team. The National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar writes today
“Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg is out with a must-read polling memo this morning, which offers some eye-opening advice to President Obama and his re-election team. After testing several of the president’s economic messages, he finds the argument that the economy is back on the right track polls miserably – and ‘produces disastrous results.’
“’It is weaker than even the weakest Republican message and is 10 points weaker in intensity than either Republican message,’ Greenberg wrote. ‘A third said this message made them less likely to support Barack Obama. Alarmingly, this message barely receives majority support among self-identified Democrats – and even less support among all other groups.’
“The memo reads as a glaring wake-up call to the White House, which has been trumpeting improving economic figures lately. Greenberg notes that voters are reporting ‘no improvement’ in their job situation since last June, and have experienced reduced wages and benefits and health insurance coverage. The picture Greenberg’s polling paints is an America public still deeply pessimistic about their future, and skeptical of Obama’s handling of the economy.”
In a nutshell, (1) even though Republicans are enthusiastically hammering each other, there is no evidence this is persuading GOP women to leave the party’ and (2)–to quote Ed Morrissey–“In other words, Obamanomics and its gimmicky, temporary nature and its short-term distortions in statistics don’t even fool Democrats who are inclined to believe Obama.”
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