How much of a bump will Obama get?

The more I read about the Osama operation, the more you realise what a risk it was. This wasn’t some dumb luck, or bombs hitting the right place. It is a story of intelligence agencies piecing together a puzzle over many months, and then havign enough trust in the intelligence, but also the SEALs, to send a team in.  If the mission had turned out the same as Jimmy Carter’s helicopters in Iran, then Obama would probably be joining Carter as a one term President.

But the mission was flawless – no soldiers dead, no civilians dead, no neighbour destroyed etc.

Now this will not guarantee Obama is re-elected, but it sure will give his poll numbers a boost for a fair while. And it will pretty much permamently put heed to any notion of him not being tough enough on the war on terror.

Nate Silver blogs:

Historically, the correlation between a president’s overall approval rating and his rating on foreign affairs is stronger than is the case with his rating on the economy. If you place the two variables into a regression equation, it finds that foreign affairs is the more important component, although both are clearly statistically significant.

That is a surprise, as common wisdom is economic issues trump everything.

Unless the economic indicators significantly outperform consensus expectations, the election is still liable to be fairly close, with Mr. Obama hardly assured of coming out on top.

I think one of the boggest factors will be the quality of the Republican candidate also. Donald Trump is threatening to turn the race into a joke.