"Barack Obama is winning....and he has been pretty much all year" - salon

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/10/barack_obama_is_winning/

"The final evidence isn’t in yet, but there are strong indicators that Barack Obama received a real boost from the Democratic convention – bigger than the paltry bump Mitt Romney got out of his party’s gathering and potentially big enough to push Obama’s national lead to heights not seen since Romney emerged from the GOP primaries back in the spring.

Gallup’s daily trendline, which remained flat during and immediately after the Republican convention, has spiked in Obama’s favor over the last few days; as of Sunday afternoon, his lead was five points. He’s also pulled a few points ahead in Rasmussen’s daily poll, which has tended to be more Romney-friendly than other surveys, grabbed a four-point lead in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, and seen his job approval rating crack the 50 percent mark. A PPP poll released Sunday night also showed Obama hitting 50 percent in Ohio. Overall, the Real Clear Politics average, which had shown a dead even race as the Democratic convention opened, has Obama’s advantage climbing to 1.8 points – and possibly still growing.

The movement in Obama’s direction reinforces a point that many neutral campaign observers have been reluctant to make for months now: The presidential race is not, and has not been, a virtual tie – Obama is, and has been, winning.

The RCP average tells the story well. When Rick Santorum suspended his campaign on April 10, it essentially ended the GOP nominating contest and certified Romney as the GOP nominee. In the days immediately following Santorum’s exit, the Obama-Romney race tightened, with Obama’s edge shrinking from about five points to about two. But Romney failed to overtake Obama, and in the four-and-a-half months that followed, Obama’s lead fluctuated between one and four points. Only in the immediate run-up to the GOP convention did Romney move into a genuine tie with Obama, but even the convention didn’t push him into the lead, and now the race seems to be returning to where it’s been all along."

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GREAT read