This evening, the Des Moines Register releases partial results from its latest Iowa poll conducted by Selzer & Co. I’ll update this post with the details shortly. UPDATE: Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 45 percent. More information is after the jump. UPDATE: Added more details from Sunday’s paper.

Speaking of the Des Moines Register, an unbelievable lapse in media ethics was the focus of this week’s Civic Skinny column for Cityview, written by former Register editor Michael Gartner (from the pre-Gannett era). Long story short: the newspaper published an op-ed piece about the allegedly unfair treatment of a first-time juvenile offender, without disclosing that the 17-year-old in question is the son of Des Moines Register editorial writer Andie Dominick.

All topics are welcome in this open thread.

Link to the Register’s Saturday night blog post:

Almost all likely voters in Iowa have made their choices. Four percent support someone other than the two major party candidates. Just 2 percent remain undecided, the poll shows.

But 10 percent say they could still be persuaded to vote for another candidate, the poll found, and that represents an opening for Romney. Another opportunity: persuading more Iowans he can fix the economy, viewed by likely voters in the poll as a priority issue. […]

The new poll was conducted Sept. 23-26 by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines. It surveyed 800 Iowa adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Election questions were asked of 650 likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

The Register’s latest poll is the fourth in ten days showing Obama ahead in Iowa. American Research Group found Obama leading Romney by 51 percent to 44 percent. NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist had Obama/Biden ahead of Romney/Ryan by 50 percent to 42 percent. The odd poll out is Rasmussen, which has Romney ahead by 47 percent to 44 percent.

In February, the Des Moines Register’s Iowa poll by Selzer showed Romney and two other Republican candidates leading Obama in head-to-head matchups.

SUNDAY UPDATE: The front-page story in the Register noted, “for the first time in three years, Obama’s job approval in Iowa is above water.”

Obama has mounted a vigorous counterattack: 10 days of campaigning in Iowa this year, 67 campaign offices opened, a successful Democratic convention and more than $13 million in TV ads here.

The president’s job approval is nowhere close to his Iowa high of 68 percent shortly after he took office. But he has crossed a symbolic point crucial for re-election: More Iowans think he’s doing a good job as president (51 percent) than a bad job (47 percent).

Most Iowans, 54 percent, continue to believe the nation is on the wrong track, the poll found.

But those who think the country is going in the right direction have increased by 10 percentage points since February.

Other important findings: “Just 53 percentof likely voters in a new Iowa Poll think [Romney] ‘cares the most about people like you, while 53 percent say that about President Barack Obama.”

Paul Ryan is an asset to the Republican ticket, according to 56 percent of likely voters surveyed. Only 36 percent think Ryan’s a liability to Romney. (I still think Ryan was a bad pick, because it played into Obama’s strategy of making the election a choice rather than a referendum.) Ryan will be in Iowa for the fourth time this Monday and Tuesday.

This part surprised me the most:

The Iowa Poll measured three general approaches to address the projection that Medicare will run out of money in about 12 years.

Among all Iowa adults, 45 percent think the best way to stabilize Medicare’s finances would be to provide seniors with the option of a subsidy to help pay for regular health insurance in the private market.

Twenty-six percent say increasing how much workers pay into the system would best stabilize its finances; 9 percent say reducing the benefits the program covers; and 20 percent say they’re not sure.

The Register’s coverage today emphasizes that while Obama leads slightly, Romney could still turn things around in Iowa. That’s obviously true; a four-point lead is barely larger than the margin of error for the likely voter sample. But with less than six weeks to go, it’s better to be ahead than behind. It’s also hard to change people’s opinions about an incumbent with whom they are very familiar.

Ann Selzer pinpoints the big chance Romney missed:

Half of Iowa adults disapprove of the job the Democratic president is doing on the economy, an issue that 59 percent of likely voters here rank as one of the most important, the poll found.

Romney has built his campaign on the argument that his business knowledge, gained in building the private equity firm Bain Capital, better equips him than Obama to create jobs. Likely Iowa voters agree by a hefty 25 percentage points that the Republican nominee would better care for the needs of businesses. But so far they’re not convinced Romney will do a better job of shoring up the economy. He trails slightly (47 percent to 46 percent) in voters’ perception of who would be the better economy fixer.

“The numbers are striking – that’s his opportunity that he’s not cashed in on,” said the Register’s pollster, J. Ann Selzer. “It’s just a huge opportunity.”

I don’t know what Romney can do during the next month to make this case. Television ads from the Romney campaign and its allies have been saying all year that Obama made the economy worse, and/or Romney knows how to turn it around. Maybe Romney will come up with some new, compelling arguments in the debates, which start this Wednesday. But Obama is a fairly strong debater.