The Obama campaign is confident that it has time to convince the public that the economy and employment are recovering fast enough to enable a late election comeback. “We have six to eight months to do it and that gets us to Election Day,” said a top Democratic adviser to the campaign. In past election cycles, most notably 1992, economic recoveries have taken almost a year to settle in before the public noticed or gave credit to the president. But the fast pace of the news, driven by the Internet, and short memories of voters are giving hope to the Obama campaign.

“We are starting to win on the message and we’re inching in the right direction,” said another adviser who also consults with Senate Democrats. And, he added, “Republicans don’t have a plan to deal with Obama optimism.”