For more than 20 years pollsters have asked voters whether they would reelect some officeholder, vote against him or consider someone else. Two decades ago, the responses were pretty good indicators of how an incumbent would do in an election: if less than 50% said they would reelect him, he was in trouble. Partisan spinners still use this argument. But voters seem to be responding to this question in this decade differently from how they did in the past.

Case in point, from Mark Blumenthal’s excellent www.pollster.com blog a poll by the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies asked this question about Barack Obama. The results: 42% would reelect, 24% would vote to replace and 22% say they would consider someone else. But does anyone doubt that if the election were held today Obama would win? I certainly don’t, with the same poll showing him with 63% job approval. For some reason some quantum of voters who are pretty certain to vote for Obama still say they would consider someone else. Perhaps they want to show their openmindedness.