"Anything above 60% in this day and age is pretty good, so we have to give him that," he said. "My basic view would be that, for a solid year, Obama is going to get a pretty good ride, certainly in the upper 50s to the lower 60s.
"Part of that is due to a Republican Party that really hasn't developed a consensus of its own yet," Tarrance said.
But, Tarrance continued, "it is inevitable that if things don't work [and] he doesn't start developing some substance, then he will generate a lot of heat."
Ed Goeas, another Republican pollster, said that Obama had turned his rhetoric away from "down-talking the economy" to a more optimistic outlook, and that the shift may be buoying opinion of him. If unemployment reaches "that magic number of 10%," Goeas suggested, Obama's ratings will probably slide.
Pew surveyed 1,507 adults from April 14 to 21, AP/GfK 1,000 adults from April 16 to 20. Gallup's tracking poll is a three-day average of daily samples of 500 people. Pew and Gallup have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, AP/GfK plus or minus 3.1 points.
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mdsilva@tribune.com
