by Jules Witcover

Regarding the political life of Barack Obama, as Mark Twain once said about himself: reports of his death are greatly exaggerated.

Barely two months since the president's self-described shellacking in the midterm congressional elections, events have conspired to give him two opportunities to rebound. He has seized them both with alacrity and resilience.

The first was the lame-duck session of Congress, in which he capitalized on obvious public pressure for compromise with the Republicans, crafting a deal in which he could argue he came out a winner. While yielding on a two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, Obama salvaged them for the middle class and also gained approval of a second stimulus package demonstrating his continued focus on economic recovery.

Then came the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 other victims in Tucson. It gave him the platform for a finely tuned and conciliatory speech that addressed the public dismay over the vitriol of partisan political rhetoric and commentary. He deplored both while not assigning blame for the acts of an apparently deranged individual, pleading instead for greater civility in all public discourse.

The overwhelmingly favorable response to Obama's handling was captured in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll. It found that 78 percent of the 1,053 randomly selected adults surveyed approved of what he said and how he said it, including a remarkable 71 percent of Republicans.

In the same survey, 82 percent said they thought the tone of political discourse was negative, 31 percent rated it angry, and they split evenly on whether or not they believed it "has created a climate that could encourage violence."

Obama's caution that the country "pause for a moment and make sure that we're talking to each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds" may well have been a factor in raising his overall approval rating in the same poll to 54 percent, his highest since last spring.

The survey was not so encouraging, however, for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Her own response, while also deploring the Arizona shootings, defended her use of midterm campaign ads showing rifle-sighting cross hairs targeting Giffords' and other Democrats' congressional districts.

The Post /ABC News poll found that 46 percent of respondents disapproved of Palin's comments, to only 30 percent who approved. Her remarks came in a videotaped statement in which she specifically said the blame rested with the perpetrator and "not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle."

Palin, however, then added that "journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn." The phrase immediately drew criticism as a reference to old anti-Semitic smears of Jews with blood on their hands.

Aside from violating the old caution to politicians not to pick a fight with someone who "buys ink by the barrel," Palin provided -- probably unwittingly -- a sharp contrast to Obama's even-tempered observations. The president's political strategists could hardly have wished for a more helpful comment from her. Nor could all those Democrats who see Palin as an eminently beatable prospective foe in 2012 and Republicans who quake at the thought of her as their standard-bearer then.

As for Obama, the swift turnaround of his fortunes in the political world of crystal ball gazing only demonstrates that basing future outcomes on current public-opinion polling is a fool's errand. The old- timers in opinion-sampling long ago cautioned the press and the public to remember their handiwork should never be viewed as anything more, as the senior George Gallup liked to say, than "one snapshot in a moment of time."

There will be many more of them between now and the 2012 presidential election, and many more events about which presidential hopefuls will comment and pollsters will appraise as to which way the political winds are blowing. Candidates behind in the polls always say the only one that counts "is the one held on Election Day," and they're certainly right about that (unless the Supreme Court says otherwise).

 

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Obama and the Polls | Politics

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