2012 U.S. Presidential Election

[mrstickball]

PDF said:

mrstickball said:

I would beg to differ, having the assumption that the Reps have this on lock.   Barrack approval ratings http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

Bush approval ratings on 04 http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm

My point being that Obama has a lot of haters now but slightly still more supporters and they will rally and become loud.   Bush was under 50 before going into 04 and rallied back up to win against Kerry.   Why did Bush win?  Largely because Kerry sucked.  Now the three runners you mentioned I don't know enough about, maybe they don't suck and can win the primary.  Maybe they go on to become real contenders but right now they are still nobodies and its a long road to being somebody.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html

Republicans can win if they find someone who is charismatic and can win over the nation but I havent seen anyone worth any attention yet.

Few problems with your assumptions:

1. You equate current polls of Obama to that of Bush in 2004. Do not forget that we have a year and a half to go before the election. According to the charts you presented, Bush was about 10% ahead of Obama (about 60% to 51%) aligning the timeframes.
2. You use Obama's post-OBL spike data as a likely indicator of favorability - this is likely to change in the next month (and most recent polling from Rasmeussen has a leading indicator that he's gonna start dropping soon). Look at the RCP trending before the death of OBL. Prior to the death of OBL, Obama was at a 45% approval rating - lower than ANY point of Bush's first term.
3. Obama was a nobody 9 months before the Democratic primaries, too. Just because you don't know of any of the three candidates doesn't make them any less qualified (and all three have vastly more experience than Obama does). If anything, Obama proves that you can be a nobody and become president - he did it with 2 years of federal experience. Paul has ~30 years of federal experience (Congress), Johnson has 8 years of executive experience (Governor) and Cain was a federal reserve chairman and CEO of a major business. 

There are still a lot of 'ifs' surrounding the primaries, but I really don't see any bright spot in Obama's polling outside of the OBL bump. Lets not forget that Bush Sr. had a big Gulf War bump too - he still lost his re-election bid.