First, let’s salute a remarkable season by the New York Giants, who survived six straight elimination games and perhaps saved their best for last in a thrilling 21-17 victory over Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. Fans will be talking for decades about Mario Manningham’s acrobatic catch in the fourth quarter. And kudos to Eli Manning, who again stepped up for a big game. As this is written, they are warming up outside my office for the Giants victory parade, a much deserved honor.

But to return to the more usual grist for this column, politics, is President Obama making a bit of a comeback in his bid for reelection?

There do seem to be at least some tepid signs in favor of the president. A well publicized poll of registered voters by ABC News and the Washington Post gave Mr. Obama a 51-45 percent lead among registered voters over Republican frontrunner, although the partisan breakdown of respondents does not appear to be available, always useful in evaluating the validity of polling results. (The Romney campaign also complained about the order of the survey questions.)

And the daily Rasmussen tracking poll has Mr. Obama in the lead over Mr. Romney by six points 48-42 percent. The unusual part about that poll is that Mr. Romney is not reported as doing well among Republicans as Mr. Obama is doing among Democrats, a rather atypical situation. Shares of Mr. Obama winning the presidency on the Intrade prediction market now trade at about $5.80, which means that the investors believe he has a 58% chance of winning. At one point, the President was in the $4.90-5.00 range. Of course, there was a time that shares of Herman Cain winning the Presidency traded well.

Mr. Obama does have slightly improving numbers on a number of other fronts. His overall approval rating in the daily Gallup survey is now in the mid to upper forties most days, a little better than the low forties in late 2011. According to the Rasmussen survey, the number of people who think that the country is on the right track is slightly better, still at an anemic 29 percent, but that’s up from 24 percent a month ago and 16 percent a month before that.

Mr. Obama is also gaining a little in the economic confidence numbers. The Gallup economic confidence index has rebounded a bit to levels about the same as in 2010. Rasmussen reports that 57 percent of Americans think we are in a recession, but that is down from 67 percent three months ago. Also, Rasmussen tells us that 35 per cent of respondents think that their finances are good, up from a low of 27 percent and back to the same level when Mr. Obama took office in 2009.

There is some substance behind the somewhat improved ratings. The recent unemployment numbers, while not doing a good job of taking discouraged workers into account, did show fairly robust job growth figures. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is now nearing 13,000.

Still, the President has a long, long way to go, especially once the Republicans end the often petty battle for the nomination. No President has been elected since the Great Depression with the economy in this bad a condition and Mr. Obama is still a very controversial figure. (He has not helped himself with many religious voters, either, with his recent health care mandate.) But you would have to say that things are looking just a little better at the White House.