Look at the Ramussen polls.
He's a conservative pollster, and he generally finds the president with an approval rating of around 47-50%. He rates higher than pretty much every potential republican challenger.
If you think the polls don't show he's the favorite for re-election, you are foolin yourselves.
One reason it might appear like he should be more unpopular than he is, is that quite a lot more people hate him that love him- still, about half of america "somewhat approves". And this is before the media has been unleased on the Republican nominee...
We'll have to see how poorly the economy is doing over the summer and fall of 2012. I am not convinced it is going to be doing any better than it is now. We have a 1.8% growth rate when economists state we need a 5-7% growth rate to get out of a recession, so we're still going to be hurting then.
If people vote their pocketbooks, I think Obama might be hurting.
OTOH, as Socrates once stated,
"the problem with democracy is that two fools outvote one wise man." I yield to no one in my respect for the American voter to make truly assinine decisions. If that weren't true Obama wouldn't be infesting the oval office right now.
The Hannities, the Limbaughs, the Boortzes, all those pop culture pundits better go into overdrive; and the repukes better get on board -- they need to redouble their efforts to ejumakate the American electorate. Heck, scratch that, they better DO IT! Doubling zero doesn't help ......