It is prudent to dismiss single swing-state polls, such as Quinnipiac's this morning, "showing Barack Obama with his first lead of the 2012 campaign over Mitt Romney in Virginia," just as it is prudent to dismiss single national polls, such as the Washington Post-ABC News's this week, which revealed that "President Obama for the first time holds a clear edge over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney."
It would be foolish, however, to dismiss what these polls are saying in the aggregate, especially given the additional, suggestive evidence of lower turnout in Republican primaries, an indication of a pronounced dispiritedness among the most piously cantankerous, get-off-my-lawn party faithful. And what this suggestive convergence is beginning to scream is: They're going down.
Earlier this morning I heard the National Journal's Major Garrett, speaking on MSNBC, say he couldn't really account for this primary season's overall diminished turnout. Well, I can't say with any epistemological precision that I in fact know, but I would say that hazarding the above guess is becoming less and less hazardous.
Miracles still occur. And by that I mean that in this presidential cycle I think the GOP base has been as keenly self-aware as assorted GOP luminaries; which is to say, Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie and Haley Barbour, all of whom would have been far superior candidates to Mitt Romney, said, "No thanks." Shocking, I know, but they said "no thanks" not because of a deep and enduring love of their families, but because they did the math, they calculated the odds, and they concluded they couldn't win -- not, anyway, against a President Obama. The base, although not yet exhibiting symptoms of situational depression, was calculating roughly the same. We now see the symptoms vividly, in turnout.
One clarification, or maybe it's just a bit housekeeping. I have suggested here, from time to time, that I anticipate a "crushing" Obama victory. And by that I have meant, regrettably without being more specific, an imposing victory in the electoral -- not popular vote -- count. In 2008 Barack Obama won with less than 53 percent of the popular vote, but racked up a crushing 68 percent of the electoral count. And as he makes inroads (or re-inroads) in swing states like Virginia -- cautiously, prudently weighed, of course -- I'd say he's well on his way to an encore performance.