As many of you who regularly visit Pollster.com know, Obama's composite approval rating is just barely in the red. Before anyone has a coronary, that composite is skewed because what was once a fairly legitimate pollster may be pissing away its reputation before our eyes.
Rasmussen Reports, by all accounts, has a slight Republican tilt, but was usually somewhat reliable during the 2008 campaign. It was the first pollster, for instance, to report Obama taking the lead in North Carolina--a piece of data that ultimately foretold the collapse of McCain's Southern firewall. But lately, its polling of Obama's job performance has been so out of step with other outlets that calling it an "outlier" would be far too kind.
Take a look at Pollster.com's list of Obama approval rating polls. Since August, most Rasmussen polls have shown Obama in negative territory--and since November, most of them have shown disapproval ratings in the double digits. This has continued despite nearly every other pollster showing Obama getting a fairly significant bounce.
All of these negative Rasmussen polls have pushed the Pollster composite just barely in the red--48 percent disapprove, 47 percent approve. But if you take out Rasmussen, ARG (by far the most dubious polling outfit) and the Internet polls--voila, 51 percent approve while 43 percent disapprove.
That alone should prove that Rasmussen's numbers are way off. But here's another tidbit. I can count at least five instances where another outfit showed Obama well in the black at the same time Rasmussen showed him in the red. The message for Scott Rasmussen--whatever method you're using to cook your figures, it's not working.