As the general election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney begins in earnest, what sort of polls should we observe to get a sense of how the candidates are performing? At Hot Air, blogger Karl argues the most helpful polls to examine right now is Obama’s job approval numbers, since, as Sean Trende has pointed out, the election will likely be a referendum on the president.

Similarly, the boss writes in his editorial this week that candidate Obama in 2008 now has a record on which he must run: