What to make of these Iowa polls? Simply put: it's hard to say.

Look, I don't want to play conspiracy theorist here in the Polling Wrap, but watching the air come rushing out of the Gingrich balloon in Rasmussen's polling (from up a couple points against Obama to down double digits in two weeks? Really?) makes me wonder if their filter is catching a caliber of Republican that is simply predisposed to like Romney more.

I base this not on generic suspicion of all things Rasmussen, but rather on the fact that no one is showing Romney leading in Iowa. Other pollsters have had Gingrich clinging to an edge, or Paul pushing into a narrow lead, or a three-way tie. But no one other than Rasmussen has given Romney even an inch of breathing room in the Hawkeye State. So, yeah, call me a skeptic.

But I am not sure I buy Iowa State or We Ask America here, either. One has Bachmann basically out of it, while the other has her making the caucuses a legit four-way battle. Someone has to be off the fairway there. But who? It's hard to know.

Meanwhile, on the general election front, this smells a little bit like a tale of two pollsters with very different ideas of who will participate next November. The Rutgers/Eagleton poll in New Jersey doesn't pass the smell test (and not just because of the curious decision not to include Rick Perry in the GOP primary test, while including both Chris Christie and Michael Bloomberg, though I suppose the latter two could have been volunteered responses). Newt Gingrich might not be America's sweetheart electorally, but it is hard to believe that a state that would elect Chris Christie would turn around and let a Democratic president with middling job approval double up his Republican rival. It's New Jersey, not Hawaii.

As for the Virginia poll, my guess is that it is an inch or two pessimistic for team Obama, but only an inch or two. Despite the emergence of NoVa as a place where Democrats can clinch statewide wins under the proper conditions, it is still a state that is divided enough to make a coin flip between Romney and Obama eminently believable.

Finally, a quick word about that YouGov national poll showing the president with respectable leads over either Romney or Gingrich. With the caveat that YouGov is an internet-only poll (with all of the sample issues therein), I have to point out something fascinating. The president's lead with that YouGov sample comes despite having absolutely horrid approval numbers with that self-same sample (42/50). If that isn't a sign that Obama could be potentially saved by the caliber of his opposition, I don't know what is.