A Rasmussen Presidential tracking poll released today confirms what has been widely suspected since friday: President Obama gained a significant “bump” in his polling numbers from the Democratic National Convention this past week. The latest Rasmussen poll puts Obama at 49% over Mitt Romney’s 45%, while the Gallup poll from Friday had Obama with a 49% to 44% advantage. As this article in the HuffingtonPost points out, “Obama is now polling against Romney better than he has since early March.”

It’s hard to imagine that Romney is going to gain any ground back on Obama with his tepid performance on Meet The Press that aired this morning. You see, when asked by NBC’s David Gregory about the specifics of his tax-cut plan (AKA the foremost expected line of questioning),  Romney consistently prevaricated and avoided giving Gregory a single direct response to the question of specifics about his tax plan:

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Here’s a highly abbreviated version of their exchange:

GREGORY:  But, Governor, where are the specifics of how you get to this math?  Isn’t that an issue?

MR. ROMNEY:  Well, the– the specifics are these which is those principles I described are the heart of my policy.  And I’ve indicated as well that– that contrary to what the Democrats are saying, I’m not going to increase the tax burden on middle income families.  It would absolutely be wrong to do that.  But you know I’ve had the experience of being a governor.  I’ve demonstrated that I have the capacity to balance budgets.  I balanced them four years in a row in Massachusetts and we cut the taxes 19 times in Massachusetts.

GREGORY:  Can you give me an example of a loophole that you will close.

MR. ROMNEY:  Well, I can tell you that people at the high end, high income taxpayers, are going to have fewer deductions and exemptions.  Those– those numbers are going to come down.  Otherwise, they’d get a tax break.  And I want to make sure people understand, despite what the Democrats said at their convention.  I am not reducing taxes on high income taxpayers.  I’m bringing down the rate of taxation, but also bringing down deductions and exemptions at the high end so the revenues stay the same, the taxes people pay stay the same.  Middle income people are going to get a break.  But at the high end, the tax coming in stays the same.  But we encourage small business, because small business is able to keep more of what it makes and therefore hire more people, which is my priority.

So Romney hits the specific talking points of (a) the Democrats want to tax the middle class but he’s cut them “19 times” as governor, and (b) he’s for small business! — all the while, refusing to answer Gregory’s simple question of naming a single loophole, deduction, or exemption that will offset his upper class tax cuts. This must be a successful interview in his book, since he clearly entered the interview without any intention of giving the media anything substantial.