EARLY RETIREMENT FOR OBAMA? – AT 9:21 A.M. ET:  We are already in the 2012 presidential election cycle.  And Byron York of the Washington Examiner thinks the indicators for President Obama are not very good:

A look inside his poll numbers suggests that if he cannot turn around some key trends, he'll be a one-term president.

Just look at the exit polls from 2008, which reveal the demographic contours of Obama's support. Compare those with Gallup's weekly analysis of the president's approval rating, drawn from multiple polls broken down by age, gender, political philosophy, and the like. Throw in some insights from the midterm elections, and the mix shows a dramatic deterioration in Obama's 2008 support.

And...

Start with voters who call themselves independents. Obama won 52 percent of them in 2008; now, according to Gallup, he is at 42 percent. Obama's party as a whole fared even worse among independents in the midterms, losing them to Republicans by 19 points. If Obama does anywhere near that badly in 2012, he'll lose.

Next, women. In 2008, Obama won 56 percent of female voters. Today, he's at 49 percent. If that number doesn't improve, he'll be in deep trouble. (Obama is also down with men, from 49 percent in 2008 to 44 percent now.)

Even younger voters, a key part of Obama's coalition, are peeling away. In '08, Obama won 66 percent of voters 18-29 years of age. Now, he's at 58 percent.

And...

Then there are white voters. In '08, Obama won 43 percent of whites. Now, he's at 37 percent -- a dangerously low number for his re-election hopes. He won 67 percent of Hispanic voters in 2008; now, he's at 58 percent...

...Just one group has stuck with Obama through it all. In '08, he won 58 percent of people with graduate degrees. Now, he's at 59 percent. It appears that academic types will be with Obama always, but they're not enough.

Yeah, the anthropology vote just isn't as decisive as it once was. 

There are counter-arguments, of course, but they seem weak:

Obama supporters point to the example of Bill Clinton, whose approval dipped to 40 percent after losing Congress in 1994, only to climb to 54 percent before winning easy re-election in 1996. Maybe that will happen again.

But Clinton's former pollster, Doug Schoen, doesn't see it that way. Schoen recently did a survey asking voters whether Obama deserves to be re-elected and found that 56 percent believe the president doesn't deserve another term, while just 38 percent believe he does.

York makes the point that major Republican blunders can still save the president, and we observe that the Republican Party has often proved itself blunder-friendly.  We must especially be concerned about the party's militant base demanding a presidential candidate who is unelectable. 

But, York says, "at this point, it will be hard for Obama to save himself. He'll need a lot of help to win a second term in the White House."

I don't think the picture is entirely bleak for the president.  An economic turnaround can save him.  So can an astute handling of a foreign crisis, although the record isn't encouraging.  "Astute handling" is not Obama's middle name.

First item of business:  to identify the Republican candidates who can beat Obama, who can run a professional campaign against a hostile press.  The bench is not all that great.  I get the sense that many in the party are looking for a dark horse, or wishing that Marco Rubio was older.  Without the best candidate, the message can turn to dust.

November 26, 2010