Views of Obama Are Too Positive!

Time's Mark Halperin writes:

After the President’s rough stretch, the snapshot polling is in and Chicago has got to be pretty happy, particularly with the swing-state strength he is showing in new Quinnipiac surveys from Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal battleground data.

Halperin is Mr. Conventional Wisdom, of course, and isn't particulary known for saying things look good for Obama. For example, he said only two days ago that whichever way the Supreme Court ruled on health care, it was bad for Obama.

Looking at the numbers in the polls he's referring to, we see: in Quinnipiac, Obama is +4 in Florida, +6 in Pennsylvania, and +9 in Ohio (yep). In none of them is Obama over 50, but leading is better than trailing.

The NBC/WSJ survey is more dramatic. It shows Obama leading in 12 battleground states by 50 to 42 percent. That's a move in Obama's direction since last month, during this month the media have declared disastrous for him.

I found one set of numbers in the crosstabs very interesting:

Q12b Would you say that your vote is more FOR Barack Obama or more AGAINST Mitt Romney?        

Results shown among Obama voters
More for Barack Obama .........................................72
More against Mitt Romney ......................................22
Some of both (VOL) ..............................................4
Not sure ................................................................2

Q12c Would you say that your vote is more FOR Mitt Romney or more AGAINST Barack Obama?

Results shown among Romney voters
More for Mitt Romney .............................................35
More against Barack Obama ..................................58
Some of both (VOL) ..............................................5
Not sure ................................................................2

Most people would look at that and think, well, that's good for Obama, but Romney desperately has to get his positive numbers up. I think just the opposite. Fear and hatred are better vote motivators, let's face it. The Obama campaign has to drive that "against Romney" up near 50, I would think. If they do that, they win.

Meanwhile, let's just keep tabs on who's doing the negative advertising. Let me remind you of WaPo's excellent "Mad Money" page, which tracks all the TV spending with ridiculous precision. The top four negative-ad spenders are all Romney groups, who've spent $70 million on TV buys that are, respectively, 100 percent negative, 70 percent negative, 53 percent negative, and 100 percent negative.

Obama's campaign ranks fifth in terms of money spent on negative ads, but the percentage is much lower--just 29 percent of his $10 in ad buys has been negative. But both sides do it, right? Right. I am saying Obama needs to do more.