I suspect the polls have nothing to do with Obama's comportment in the financial crisis, seeing as he's been mostly MIA through most of it, essentially staying on the campaign trail and saying, "if you need me, just call me," but playing a very small role in the negotiations.
I suspect the polls are moving in his direction solely because the public blames President Bush for the crisis. The party in power (meaning who's got the White House) historically always takes the blame for things that go wrong. That can be seen by Bush's poll numbers falling to its all-time low. The steady drumbeat that it was Republican deregulation that caused it is completely wrong, but has taken hold in the public.
It's only leaking into the mainstream press now that the Democrats are knee deep in this crisis and have far more to do with it than any Republican. If that takes hold, and it only has a few weeks to do so, I suspect you'll see the polls reversing as people see that Democrats have brought the world to the brink of financial disaster.
Obama's also terrible in public speaking when he doesn't have certain phrases memorized or if he gets off-script. He quite frequently gets into periods of "umm, ah, umm, well, umm" for minutes at a time.
