Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: The polls favor Obama (for now)

_{Visual source: Newseum}

Gallup:

Obama Now at 50% Job Approval; Leads Romney, 49% to 42%
Independents' vote preferences have shifted toward Obama

More on Gallup here from me:

Trio of Gallup polls point to good Obama positioning for November

Even more from Mark Mellman on poll volatility:

Noting that the variation resists easy explanation, Huffington Post's always astute Mark Blumenthal offered two possibilities worth exploring ' random variation and unsettled preferences.

The significance of sampling variation shouldn't be underestimated. Most surveys peg the vote for each candidate within a narrow band. As Obama and Romney traded places in the Gallup data, both candidates' support varied within just a 4-point range.

But don't overestimate sampling error, either ' the probability that Obama is up 9 and down 2 at the same time, simply as a result of statistical error, is rather remote.

Voters' unsettled preferences are also important. When pollsters push the truly undecided to support a candidate, they are asking respondents to tell more than they know, thereby eliciting noise.

That's key... you can't push voters who hate politics and like choosing in the last 10 days to decide now. You get the wrong answer if you do.

TPM:

'There's no play in the immigration debate for Republicans ' the states that it would move people are already in the R column,' said Doug Usher, a managing director with the bipartisan firm Purple Strategies and a former pollster for Sen. John Kerry's (D) presidential campaign. But it's equally unlikely to put new states on the map for President Obama, though Usher says he thinks Latino support could help him hold Colorado and Virginia.

Dana Milbank:

Aficionados of the Etch a Sketch will recall a certain flaw in the toy: If you use it often, some of the lines drawn no longer disappear when you shake the device, instead leaving an indelible trace of where you have been.

This is the problem Mitt Romney is encountering: He is shaking the device, trying to erase impressions left during this year's primary contest. But he just can't shake away the image of Russell Pearce [AZ's SB 1070 immigration law architect].

Mark Bittman writes about  

Wendell Berry, American Hero.

In Washington this past Monday, Wendell delivered the 2012 Jefferson Lecture, the highest honor the federal government has for 'distinguished intellectual achievement' in the humanities. He titled the talk 'It All Turns on Affection.' When I visited him last month he told me that preparing the talk 'taxed him greatly,' and I can see why. It's incredibly ambitious, tying together E.M. Forster's 'Howard's End,' the history of his family and the country around it, and ' to summarize it rather crudely ' the costs of capitalism's abuse of humans and land.

Jonathan Bernstein:

Will Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, and the Tea Partiers who nominated them keep costing Republicans in 2012, at least in the Senate? That's what Molly Ball argues based on her reporting.