According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s Mitt Romney. While I appreciate the inclusive attempt at outreach, the time has long since come for the Journal to ditch Stevie Wonder as its go-to line-drawing artist. This effort isn’t even close, and we may have to put up with it for the next eight years.

And, to answer a nagging question from the comment boards, some are wondering why I’m not celebrating the Survey USA poll that shows Romney with an 11 point lead in NH like it’s the second coming of the Cinco de Mayo in three days. The short answer is that I’ve always prided myself on blogging with a certain quiet dignity, and I don’t want to do anything in response to this news that would jeopardize my hard-earned reputation in that regard.

A non-facetious answer is that at this stage of the game, polls aren’t such an incredibly important metric. Even the cumulative weight of all the polls is less than vital, but any individual poll is almost by definition just not worth getting really excited or depressed about. I even read somewhere today (sorry –forget where) that Joe Biden is gaining some traction in Iowa. As Mitt himself might say, for goodness sakes!

What is important are trend lines. That’s pretty much what I was getting at with this morning’s post and the ominous flatness of Edwards’ polling numbers. Regardless of what any particular poll says, Romney is trending well.

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