A new National Journal/Heartland Monitor Poll out this morning finds Obama leading Mitt Romney nationally by 50-43 among likely voters. The poll probes voter attitudes towards the economy in a very interesting way that really explains why Obama may be winning re-election.

The key takeaway is the poll’s confirmation that Romney’s theory of the race — which is built on the “are you better off” question — seems to be flawed, as I’ve repeated far too often. Ron Brownstein explains:

The survey also shows why it may be difficult for Republicans to center the election on the famous Ronald Reagan question to voters that the party highlighted at its national convention last month: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

That question divides likely voters almost exactly in thirds: in the poll, 31 percent say they are better off than four years ago, while 34 percent say they are worse off and 34 percent say they are about the same. Romney, predictably, wins more than four-fifths of voters who say they are worse off; the president, equally unsurprisingly, attracts almost nine in 10 of those who consider themselves better off.

Crucially, though, Obama holds a commanding 57 percent to 34 percent advantage among those who say their finances are unchanged. One reason for that critical tilt in his direction: Voters who say their finances are unchanged also say, by a resounding 53 percent to 33 percent margin, that they believe the country has been better off over these past four years because Obama, rather than another candidate, won in 2008. Overall, 48 percent say they believe the country is better off because Obama won in 2008, while 41 percent say the nation would be in a stronger position today if another candidate had won.

A majority of those who say they remain financially stagnant still support Obama and say the country overall is better off because of his presidency. People are just not holding Obama responsible for our economic woes in the manner Romney had hoped. There’s also this:

In a related finding, 47 percent of likely voters said they believed Obama’s economic policies helped “avoid an even worse economic crisis and are laying the foundation for our eventual economic recovery.” By contrast, 45 percent said that his agenda has “run up a record federal deficit while failing to end the recession or slow the record pace of job losses.”

Republicans sneer when Dems argue that things could have been worse and are on track to get better later. And it’s a difficult argument to make. But the voters that count just may prove willing to accept this case. Perhaps they are being realistic about the severity of the crisis and depth of our problems, are willing to give Obama more time to fix them, and are concluding Romney doesn’t have any answers of his own. Romney’s initial calculation seemed to be that voters have concluded Obama was such a resounding failure that all he had to do was show up with a smile on his face to win the presidency. That hasn’t worked, however, which is why he’s now attacking Obama over anything he can lay his hands on, no matter how trivial or absurd.

The economy remains a millstone for Obama, and there’s a long way to go. But for now, voter thinking about the economy and the Obama presidency simply isn’t following Romney’s script. It may be tracking more with Obama’s framing of the race, which was forcefully established in Bill Clinton’s convention speech and is being amplified by heavy advertising in the swing states.

* Is GOP set to cave on taxes? The Post has an important report: Senior Republicans are conceding that if Obama wins reelection, they will have to drop their opposition to tax hikes for the wealthy when the “fiscal cliff” talks begin in earnest.

I don’t know if they are really prepared to back down, and if they do, it would surely require other concessions from Dems. But this gives the Obama camp a good argument. He has claimed winning reelection will break the GOP’s unwillingness to compromise on solving our fiscal problems — the main sticking point remains what tax rate the rich will pay — and senior Republicans seem to be confirming this.

* Romney expected to be winning by now: The New York Times has an epic look at the “daunting” path Romney faces, including this:

The state-by-state landscape facing Mr. Romney is more daunting than he expected by this stage in the contest. He anticipated, aides said, to be in a position of strength in at least some of the states that turned Democratic in 2008 for the first time in a generation, but few of them show signs of breaking decisively his way, and Mr. Obama still has more and clearer paths to 270 electoral votes.

The endless comparisons to 1980 are all about creating a theory of the race that explains why Romney — unexpectedly — isn’t winning yet.

* Keep an eye on Romney’s “Mr. Fix-It” image: Jill Lawrence fleshes out a point that really deserves more attention: “It’s hard to imagine a worse argument for competence than the Romney campaign’s performance over the past few months.”

As I reported here recently, Dems are closely watching to see if Romney’s gaffes and campaign misfires are eroding perceptions of his managerial competence and leadership qualities.

* Romney campaign continues hitting “inside” comments: Judging from the press release just out from the Romney campaign, it will center its message on Obama’s comment that change comes from outside DC:

Yesterday, President Obama said the most important lesson he’s learned is that ‘you can’t change Washington from the inside.’ The candidate of ‘yes, we can’ has become the president of ‘no, I can’t.’

My write up of yesterday’s non-troversy is here. We are now in McCain, Palin, and “lipstick on a pig” territory. Remember that one?

* Voters won’t care about “inside” comments: Steve Benen also has a good point-by-point breakdown of the absurdity of the Romney camp’s attack. This is right on: “are we supposed to believe the American mainstream will hear the president talk about meaningful political change coming from outside the Beltway and voters will recoil? They’ll find this observation ridiculous? Please.”

Seriously. Does anyone really believe voters will find this problematic?

* Romney’s path to victory is narrowing: Last night’s NBC/WSJ polls show Obama building leads in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Colorado, and the Journal explains why this could be a big deal:

The new poll results are significant in part because the Romney campaign views the three states as steppingstones to an Electoral College majority, given Mr. Romney’s slippage in polls of two of the largest battlegrounds, Ohio and Virginia.

* Scott Brown attacks "Professor Warren” at debate: A nice write-up of last night’s debate from E.J. Dionne. As he notes, Warren needs voters to look past Scott Brown’s likable image — which he may have damaged with his attacks on her heritage and credentials. (Apparently Senator Brown thinks academic achievement is a bad thing, or at least thinks voters are dumb enough to see it as such.)

Warren made Brown’s prioritizing of tax cuts for the rich and subsidies for Big Oil, and the need for Dem control of the Senate, central to her message, in an effort to nationalize the race. The key moment, from the point of view of the Warren camp, can be watched here.

* Obama campaign keeps hitting Romney over leaked video: The Obama campaign is out with a new Web video on Romney’s freeloading 47 percent remarks, this one featuring seniors on Social Security and Medicare taking umbrage at Romney’s suggestion that they are “victims.” The goal is to raise doubts about Romney’s commitment to the core mission of the programs by suggesting he doesn’t agree with the basic bargain at their core.

* And Gallup is alone in finding race tied: Nate Cohn continues to marvel at the degree to which Gallup’s finding of a tied presidential race is out of sync with virtually all other polling. Mark Blumenthal has theorized that the problem lies in the racial composition of its samples.

What else?

* Great stuff from the Huffington Post flagging another important Mitt Romney quote from the leaked freeloading 47 percent video:

“’Oh, you were born with a silver spoon,’ you know, ‘You never had to earn anything,’ and so forth. And, and frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is the greatest gift you could have, which is to get born in America. I’ll tell ya, there is — 95 percent of life is set up for you if you’re born in this country.”

As Ryan Grim and Arthur Delaney point out: “in crediting 95 percent of an American’s success to the country in which he or she was born, Mitt Romney was saying that something else was responsible for that success. In other words, if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. ”

Yup: 95 percent of your business — you didn’t build that. This one deserves more attention.

* Obama, on Romney’s freeloading 47 percent remarks:

“When you express the attitude that half the country considers themselves victims and wants to be dependent on government, my thinking is that you haven’t gotten around a lot.”

* James Downie has an excellent piece on the resolution of the Chicago teachers’ strike and how it could begin to undermine the pernicious consensus that unions are the major obstacle to educating children.

* Good stuff from Jonathan Bernstein on the undying myth that the Real Obama has still not been thoroughly vetted, and the real reason conservative opinionmakers keep trafficking in this nonsense.

* About that study of working class whites I highlighted earlier today: David Atkins on the “redistribution for me, but not for thee” ethic on display, and how progressives need to combat it.

* And Ed Kilgore is also good on the conflicting forces pulling at working class white voters in this election and how they may decide to navigate them.

* New NBC/WSJ polls:

In both Colorado and Wisconsin, Obama is ahead by 5 points among likely voters (including those learning toward a candidate), 50 percent to 45 percent. And in Iowa, the president’s edge over Romney is 8 points, 50 percent to 42 percent.

Of course, this polling was taken was before Obama committed his latest game-changing gaffe., i.e., his claim that the way to change Washington is not from the inside, but by engaging more Americans in the political process.

* You’ll be startled to hear this one. Jamison Foser points out that Romney is now attacking Obama for saying precisely the same thing he said himself in 2007:

“I don’t think you change Washington from the inside. I think you change it from the outside.”

* Jed Lewison, on Romney’s latest: “as always, he’s managing to take the dumb, and make it dumber.”

* And yet, the Romney camp claims it will keep pounding this “gaffe” in the days ahead. Game changer!

* Beth Reinhard on the mood inside the Romney campaign and the reasons Romney still thinks he can pull this out. Key nugget:

it is an article of faith in the Romney campaign that the nation’s economic doldrums will ultimately expose Obama to undecided voters as a failed leader and that Romney’s business background and a new emphasis on his more detailed prescriptions to fix the economy will lure those voters into his camp.

The key words there being, “article of faith.”

* Also, about the Romney camp’s vow to share more detail about his economic prescriptions: Romney can’t do this, because his plan isn’t actually a plan to help the middle class.

* And Politifact, on Romney’s claim that “redistribution” has “never been a characteristic of America”: Pants on fire! Amazing that this even needs to be discussed.

So the supposed Obama gaffe of the day is that he said this at the Univision town hall: “The most important lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t change Washington from the inside.”

Dave Weigel can’t fathom why this is supposed to be a gaffe. Steve Benen is similarly perplexed, and labels the whole thing a joke. And yet Republicans and conservatives are pouncing. Mitt Romney slammed Obama over the remarks today, arguing that he has thrown in the “white flag of surrender.” So it’s now a real story.

Okay, then. Here’s Obama’s quote:

“The fact that we haven’t been able to change the tone in Washington is disappointing. We know now that as soon as I came into office you already had meetings among some of our Republicans colleagues saying, `how do we figure out how to beat the president?’ I think that I’ve learned some lessons over the last four years. And the most important lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside. And that’s how the big accomplishments, like health care, got done, was because we mobilized the American people to speak out...something that I’d really like to concentrate on in my second term is being in a much more constant conversation with the American people, so they can put pressure on Congress to move some of these issues forward.”

This is a gaffe? The idea seems to be that the isolated sentence shows Obama admitting failure at one of the central goals of his presidency and declaring this goal impossible. Was this an admission of failure? Well, yes, it was. You know how we know this? Because he said so right there in that first sentence: “The fact that we haven’t been able to change the tone in Washington is disappointing.”

But come on — Obama is not saying that achieving change in Washington is impossible. Obama is making a standard inside-game-outside-game argument here, one he’s made for years. He is making an argument about how meaningful change is achieved. He’s arguing that the only way to achieve it is by compelling action from elected officials — by mobilizing public pressure on them through the engagement of as many Americans as possible into the political process. If this is a gaffe, then Obama also committed a major gaffe in his convention speech, which was carefully scripted over the course of weeks. In it, Obama said precisely the same thing, citing his own achievements and claiming they were only enabled by the American people:

“The election four years ago wasn’t about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens — you were the change. You’re the reason there’s a little girl with a heart disorder in Phoenix who’ll get the surgery she needs because an insurance company can’t limit her coverage. You did that.

“You’re the reason a young man in Colorado who never thought he’d be able to afford his dream of earning a medical degree is about to get that chance. You made that possible.”

Obama today regretted that he had not achieved more cooperation from Congress and said he wished he’d had more success breaking the stranglehold of partisanship and gridlock on the political process. He said he hopes to do more in his second term to mobilize public opinion — not just to achieve more of the change he achieved that way during his first term, but also to force more fundamental change in how Congress operates. If Romney thinks the promise to engage more Americans in the political process is a gaffe, that is certainly newsworthy.

Romney has really hit the political jackpot with this one! Maybe he can organize a second whole GOP convention centered on it.

It’s been widely observed that Mitt Romney’s attacks on Obama over Medicare, welfare, dependency and “redistribution” are about driving up Romney’s share of working class white support. Romney — who may need two thirds of that vote to win — is arguing that Obama isn’t really looking out for their interests and wants to redistribute their hard-earned money and medical benefits to those other people.

So today’s report on white working class Americans from the Public Religion Research Institute is a must read. It defines them as ”non-Hispanic white Americans without a four-year college degree who hold non-salaried jobs, and make up one third (36 percent of all Americans,” and it sheds light on what all this stuff is all about.

On “dependency,” the study finds that large numbers of working class whites (46 percent) have received Social Security or disability payments over the last two years; more than a fifth have received food stamps; 19% have received unemployment.

Yet the study also finds that three quarters of working class whites believe poor people have become too dependent on government assistance. There’s obviously overlap there, which bears out what some have already pointed out — many of these voters simply won’t think Romney’s comments about the freeloading 47 percent, or about government “dependency” in general, are about them.

But the findings on “redistribution” are also revealing. White working class voters want to soak the rich, and they agree with key aspects of Obama’s views about capitalism and inequality.

Nearly two thirds of working class whites want to hike taxes on those over $1 million. More than half say one of our biggest problems is that we “don’t give everyone an equal chance in life.” Seventy-eight percent of them blame America’s economic problems on corporations moving jobs overseas and 69 percent on Wall Street making risky decisions.

In fairness, 69 percent also blame government regulation and 64 percent blame Obama’s policies. But as Molly Ball notes, there is clearly a strong strain of economic populism and a powerful skepticism about unfettered capitalism among them.

And this gets us back to what this is all about. Obama is hammering Romney over Bain outsourcing, his own wealth and low tax rates, his proposed tax cuts for the rich, and the ways the overall Romney/Ryan agenda would redistribute wealth upward, because these voters are clearly receptive to this kind of populism. Romney, meanwhile, is countering all that with his own message about all the ways Obama allegedly wants to redistribute wealth downward to the dependent poor, a narrative that may also resonate with their views.

Romney will likely win this vote decisively. But as this study shows, there are clearly aspects of Obama’s message and Romney’s business past and priorities that could give enough of them pause to prevent Romney from getting them in the overwhelming numbers he needs .

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UPDATE: I should have noted that the study was funded by the Bend the Arc Foundation and Nathan Cummings Foundation, which appear to lean liberal.

Mitt Romney and Republicans have long assumed Barack Obama simply can’t win reelection, given the state of the economy. Yet Obama is currently winning, anyway. Why? Perhaps the unexpected dynamics driving this race can be summed up in two sentences:

1) More Americans are concluding that for all their disappointment, the economy will improve in an Obama second term; and

2) Romney has failed to persuade people that he would improve the economy any faster than it will improve under Obama.

If this explains why Obama is leading, then the Romney campaign’s big question — “are you better off than you were four years ago?” — simply isn’t the dominant frame voters are adopting to choose the next president. Indeed, there is now a great deal of polling that suggests this to be the case. Taken together, the picture is striking:

* In this week’s Fox News swing state polls, Obama holds an advantage on the question of who would improve the economy and jobs in Ohio (50-43), in Virginia (49-44), and in Florida (49-46).

* In this week’s NYT/CBS/Quinnipiac polls of Wisconsin, Virginia, and Colorado, Obama holds an advantage on the economy in two of the three: Wisconsin (49-46) and Virginia (49-47).

* In this week’s NBC/WSJ national poll, disapproval of Obama on the economy is higher than approval, but he still is ahead on who is better prepared to lead in the next four years, 47-36. The past is not necessarily coloring views of the future. Why?

Because more people are concluding things will improve. Forty-two percent think things will get better in the next year — up six points since August and 15 since July.

* This week’s Associated Press poll has similar findings: 49 percent of Americans say the economy will get better over the next 12 months, versus 39 percent who say it will stay the same or get worse. Remember, big majorities expect Obama to get reelected.

* Obama has pulled into a tie with Romney on the economy in the last eight national polls: Pew, AP, NBC/WSJ, NYT/CBS, Rasmussen, Post/ABC, CNN, and Fox News. That’s after Romney led on the issue in many polls for nearly a year.

Romney’s core argument for months has been: You are not better off than you were four years ago; Obama made the economy worse; I will make it better. It’s hard to square all the above polling with the notion that voters are accepting this frame. People who are disappointed in Obama’s economic performance are still concluding he’d do at least as good a job (in some polls) or a better one (in others) than Romney on the economy in the next four years. The “are you better off” question may not be driving decision-making. Perhaps this is partly why Obama is leading.

As I’ve been saying, Romney’s fundamental theory of the race — that the economy makes Obama an all-but-certain loser, meaning Romney only has to clear a minimum threshold of acceptability to win — may have been flawed. Sean Trende, hardly a liberal, is reaching a similar conclusion. The Romney camp’s latest announcement of a reset, in which he’ll supposedly talk more concretely about how his plans will affect families, suggests at least a rhetorical acknowledgment of this.

No question, the economy is still a major burden for Obama, and he’s still a long way from winning. But right now, Americans just don’t seem to be thinking about it the way Romney needs them to.