There's a reason Mitt Romney has shifted his rhetoric recently on Obama's economic record. He hasn't dropped the absurd line that Obama has made the recession worse. But he has firmly conceded that the economy is getting better. Money quote:
INGRAHAM: You’ve also noted that there are signs of improvement on the horizon in the economy. How do you answer the president’s argument that the economy is getting better in a general election campaign if you yourself are saying it’s getting better?
ROMNEY: Well, of course it’s getting better. The economy always gets better after a recession, there is always a recovery. […]
INGRAHAM: Isn’t it a hard argument to make if you’re saying, like, OK, he inherited this recession, he took a bunch of steps to try to turn the economy around, and now, we’re seeing more jobs, but vote against him anyway? Isn’t that a hard argument to make? Is that a stark enough contrast?
ROMNEY: Have you got a better one, Laura? It just happens to be the truth.
And although some will see this as a huge self-inflicted wound, I think it's actually smart. To run for president denying the core economic reality you're in is to build your house on quicksand. But Ingraham is dead right as well. It's much harder to beat a first term president during an economic recovery – especially when the worst of the recession occurred just before he got into office, and the rest of the world is doing much worse.
But look at the data above. People are changing their minds about the direction of the country. At its peak, the wrong/right direction gap was at 56 percent. A few months later, it's narrowed to 33. The Dish noticed this a while back, but the trend has only intensified. If it continues on its current trajectory (unlikely but possible), he could run for re-election with more people thinking the country is going in the right direction than the wrong one.
Obama has the wind at his back. Well, a mild breeze, anyway.