Zogby: Romney handily defeats Obama among independents

My take:

So, Mitt Romney is the front-runner, for the time being, among three unannounced but likely candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. He leads President Obama by 11 points among independents and trails Obama by only 2 points overall, according to a Zogby Poll released Thursday. Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee trail Obama by much bigger margins.

This is an exceptionally strong showing by Romney, whose overhaul of the Massachusetts health care system, while governor, became an embarrassing model for Obamacare. He has weathered that embarrassment.

From here, Romney's upside is terrific. Obama's anti-American policy regime, designed to weaken, and perhaps bankrupt, the country, has driven up the national deficits and debt and raised doubts throughout the world about this country's viability.

For Romney, this may induce a sense of deja vu. He earned his wealth by picking through the boneyards of corporate America, salvaging things of value from the debris. Later, as the Salt Lake City Olympics were careening toward debt-ridden disaster, he was called in to turn things around, and did.

Now, history may be calling again, except this time it is the nation itself that has been placed at risk by a corrupt and reckless Democrat Congress and a White House that uses thuggish Chicago tactics to enact legislative memorials to long-dead leftist icons.

"Medicine is the keystone of the socialist arch," said Vladimir Lenin, chief architect of Russian communism.

Obama appeared to take those words as his command, leading an absurd, exaggerated attack against the world's finest health care system.

Romney, on the other hand, undertook the Romneycare project for a practical reason. At the time, Massachusetts was taxing businesses to compensate for shortfalls in the health care system. Some businesses were leaving the state. The point of Romneycare was to preserve the state's tax base, while also extending health care to underserved citizens.

In any case, that's an old story and any resentments against Romney already are reflected in the polls.

Those polls show that, among independents, Obama is weak while Romney is strong.

The well-tailored Romney seems tailor-made for the task at hand.

Zogby: Romney surpasses Palin and Huckabee in head-to-head test against Obama, leads by 11 points among independents

Former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney is a “major player” nipping at the heels of President Obama and stands as the GOP’s best shot to reclaim the Oval Office in 2012, a new national poll shows.

“In many ways, he’s arguably the establishment front-runner,” pollster John Zogby said of a new poll showing Romney trailing President Obama by just 2 percentage points. “He’s got name recognition, he’s been through it before, and he did credibly in 2008. He’s a major player in the race.”

The Zogby poll of 8,487 likely voters showed Obama edging Romney out 45 to 43 percent.

Romney’s potential GOP opponents, Sarah Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, both fared far worse against Obama. Palin trailed the president by 11 points while Huckabee was behind by 9 points, the poll found.

Romney has yet to say if he’s running again, but the wealthy venture capitalist has been traveling the country raising money for Republicans and handing out endorsements in state races.

“Gov. Romney’s focus is on helping Republicans win in 2010,” Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said. “We don’t want to get off track with speculation about future hypothetical races.”

The poll also found Romney leading the president among independents 47 to 36, which Zogby called “very significant.”

Romney was also stronger among GOP voters than Palin or Huckabee. Republicans favored Romney over Obama 81 percent to 6 percent while 73 percent favored Palin or Huckabee over the president.

“At least as of now, Romney does a better job bringing Republicans in and a significantly better job among independents,” Zogby said.

Given this breakdown, Sotomayor has no chance

"A Zogby poll released this week showed that among Hispanics who felt that they had read or heard enough about Sotomayor to make a decision on her nomination, 43% were opposed to her confirmation and 47% were opposed."