LATimes: Gay marriage decision not working in Obama's favor so far

 By Paul West
May 15, 2012

WASHINGTON -- It’s been one week since President Obama, prodded into action by Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks on a Sunday talk show, granted Robin Roberts of ABC News an interview in which he revealed his personal policy shift on gay marriage. Whether or not Obama’s decision, and the way it was handled politically, will make a difference on election day is still anyone’s guess — and may always be. Parsing reactions by millions of individual voters, particularly on an issue that ranks far below other concerns for most Americans, obviously involves a measure of guesswork.

That said, the first wave of polling is in, and the results aren’t looking particularly good for Obama. Taken together, four different national opinion surveys over the past week, by reputable organizations with good track records, indicate that the president’s stand could well hurt him politically. Unsurprisingly, the numbers are fairly close; but as often gets pointed out, tight elections are decided by small numbers of votes. the rest

A Gallup poll found that the overall change in public opinion was a” net minus” for Obama, though the organization cautioned that these results could change, depending on the degree to which same-sex marriage is, or is not, a campaign issue in the fall.