Barack Obama should be nervous about 2012

Je ne partage pas l'avis de l'auteur (Nile Gardiner qui écrit dans The Telegraph , mais sa réflexion n'est pas dénuée d'intérêt...

If you read America’s dominant liberal press, the conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama is launching a stirring comeback after his party’s drubbing in the midterms, and is making strong headway towards re-election in 2012 in the face of a fragmented Republican opposition that lacks a clear leader at present. They point out that President Obama has seen his political fortunes rise in the first weeks of 2011, with his overall approval rating now scraping 50 percent, after a low in November of around 44 percent. His speech in Tucson following the Arizona shootings was widely praised on both sides of the political aisle, and the president’s supporters are claiming a renewed sense of self-confidence on the part of their leader, with a noticeable spring in his step after a disastrous 2010.
But is America’s Left being bullishly overconfident in the wake of their biggest midterm defeat since 1948? Definitely, if a series of new polls are anything to go by. A CNN/Opinion Research survey released on Tuesday showed that 51 percent of Americans believe Barack Obama will lose the presidential election in 2012. The poll found that only 26 percent of registered voters will definitely vote for Obama, as opposed to 37 percent who definitely won’t. And despite a rising personal approval rating for Obama, according to RealClear Politics the American public still overwhelmingly feels the country is moving in the wrong direction, with over 60 percent of Americans taking this view.
Economic issues are likely to dominate the political landscape in the lead up to November 2012, and here the president is already at a distinct disadvantage. Gallup’s latest poll released on February 9 showed that a mere 27 percent of Americans approve of Obama on the deficit (down from 32 percent in November), with 68 percent disapproving. On taxes, Obama has 42 percent approval as opposed to 54 percent disapproval, and on the economy as a whole 60 percent of Americans are unhappy with the president’s handling of the issue, with just 37 percent in favour. And on healthcare policy, another major voter issue in 2012, only 40 percent of Americans back the president, with 56 percent against. As Gallup concludes:
President Obama has failed to build public support in recent months for his handling of major U.S. economic matters, despite a generally well-received State of the Union address in which he proposed a federal spending freeze to help put the brakes on deficit spending. His approval rating on the economy is no better than it was last fall, and his approval rating on the federal budget deficit — a top issue for Republicans in Congress since the midterm elections — is even worse. His broadest support on the issues comes on foreign policy matters, most notably the situation in Egypt, but even on these, his approval ratings register just below 50%.
It is of course far too early to be making concrete predictions for the outcome of the 2012 presidential race, and a great deal depends on the fortunes of the US economy as well as who the Republicans pick as their candidate. But with good reason, President Obama and his supporters should be nervous about their prospects 21 months from now. The November mid-terms were not a flash in the pan but part of a broader political change in the United States away from liberalism towards conservatism, as well as an emphatic rejection of the Big Government policies that continue to be promoted by the Obama presidency in the face of intense public opposition. President Obama may be experiencing a temporary bounce with his own personal ratings, but much of his agenda remain hugely unpopular.