Oh my: Obama now below 50% against Romney — in California

◼ Even in the bluest of blue states, he’s now treading water at 48 percent, still comfortably ahead of Romney but unable to grab a majority even in California - HotAir

Banish the thought from your mind that Romney has a chance of winning there. He doesn’t — although don’t hold me to that if we get another three or four jobs reports that look like today’s. No, the potential significance of this and the reason why there’s some buzz about it among righties on Twitter is that it’s circumstantial evidence that The One might be starting to collapse nationally.

◼ Mitt Romney is now the front-runner to win the White House in 2012 - Toby Harnden/Daily Mail

Romney wants to make the campaign all about the economy and all about Obama. There is little doubt that Obama wants to talk about anything other than the economy but at the same time he finds it very difficult to depart from the “all about me” theme that has characterised his entire political career.

Put all this together and what have we got? Romney must now be considered the narrow favourite in November. Of course, Obama could well be re-elected. But this feels like a moment similar to the one in mid-December 2007 when Obama began to eclipse Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

We are now seeing a very different race from the one Obama or the Washington cognoscenti ever anticipated. Things can change very quickly but Mitt Romney has just become the 2012 front-runner.