Ras: Santorum drops, Romney collapses

Rasmussen's daily tracking polls are generally worthless, and more of an indication of Scott Rasmussen's shifting biases and the uncertain Republican base than an accurate reflection of the electoral race. So, for entertainment purposes, I present the tracking poll for 2/10/12:

In a potential Election 2012 matchup, the president attracts 50% of the vote and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney 40%. This is the largest lead the president has enjoyed against Romney in regular polling going back more than a year. It’s also the first time that the president has reached the 50% level of support against Romney.

Rick Santorum now trails the president by four percentage points, 46% to 42%. Rasmussen Reports will now be tracking the Obama-Santorum race on a daily basis.

Santorum, who just days ago led the President by one point in Rasmussen's polling,  now trails by four.
Romney now trails Obama by ten nationally, which would be astounding if it were supported by any other polling firm.

As I've said before, Rasmussen's sampling (and his "likely voter" screen) is heavily skewed toward Republicans. What these numbers show is what's happening in the Republican base, not in the broader electorate, because it's based on Rasmussen's belief that Democrats won't vote unless they are really unhappy with Obama. Bearing that in mind, we can see that Romney is losing the mantle of "most electable" among the base and Santorum is becoming the new favourite. Naturally, as the new favourite, he must be polling better than Romney. If not, then the Republican base would not be the dominant political force that Rasmussen believes it to be, and they definitely would not be wise and politically savvy geniuses that he "knows" they are.

Also in Rasmussen World, Obama has cracked the 50% approval barrier that is so important to people that think the nation would vote for any idiot over a President they disliked. These people are generally known as right-wing pundits and the fools who take their pronouncements as gospel.

51% now at least somewhat approve of Obama job performance, and 49% disapprove. 37% "strongly disapprove", and that number is dropping down into the range of Republican Party identification.

In Fox News polling (1110 RV including cell), Obama has a job approval of 48%, 45% disapprove, 7% undecided. While that's below the putatively magical 50% mark, it puts Obama above water into positive territory.
Obama leads Romney 47/42.
Obama leads Santorum 50/38.
Obama leads Paul 48/38.
Obama also defeats the hypothetical "white knight" candidate Jeb Bush 50/36. So much for that idea.

Another interesting bit of information comes in the question of how enthusiastic would the respondent be if a particular candidate won.

• In the "extremely enthusiastic" category, all of the Republican candidates score in the single digits with Romney leading at 9%. Obama scores 20% in this same category. 
• In the category of "Pleased" if that person won, Romney and Santorum both get 19%. This is only slightly worse than Obama's 21% pleased.
• In the category of "Scared" if that person won, Gingrich is the clear leader at 33%. Romney as President scares 20%, and Santorum 22%. Obama in a second term scares 27%. This kind of contradicts the wingnut narrative of a scary Obama losing to an imperfect, but not-scary, Republican candidate. Apparently, a 7% difference (at best) between the two options is enough to base an electoral strategy on.

So, if Obama wins we have 41% happy / 27% scared. If the Republican wins, we have 28% happy / 20% scared. That's the big divide in popular opinion that the Right hopes to capitalise on.
That 27% that is scared of Obama just happens to be identical to the "crazification factor" in the American electorate. Even during Bush's darkest hours, you could always find at least 27% of the electorate supporting him. And we are somehow supposed to let those people become the arbiters of an acceptable President.

Let's not forget the Republican primary race. 41% of likely Republican primary voters nationally think that "one or more of the Republican candidates" should drop out, and Ron Paul is the 'favourite' to be that person at 43%. Note to Ron Paul fans with poor reading skills: this means that a considerable number of Republican primary voters want Paul to drop out, not that they prefer him.

So Fox News polling isn't seeing Rasmussen's remarkable 10-point lead for Obama over Romney, nor are they seeing a close race between Obama and Santorum. Weird. It's almost as if Rasmussen is some kind of outlier pollster that nobody really takes seriously.