Time To Stop the Second Coronation of Mr. Obama – ABC/Washington Post Poll Brings Telling Results

And the Results Tell of a Re-Election That May Not Happen Despite Republican Mistakes

As the laugh-a-minute Republican race for the party’s Presidential nomination continued, the seeming self destruction of the candidates lead many observers to declare the fall election pretty much over, with Mr. Obama safely in the winner's circle.  This Forum has never subscribed to that, in fact it has argued Mr. Obama may even be the underdog due to the coming array of negative ads financed by wealthy billionaires against him and the incompetency of his own campaign staff.  Once Mr. Romney makes his expected pick of an arch Conservative for the Vice Presidential position, the party will rally around him, united by their fanatical hatred of Mr. Obama.

This is now confirmed by the latest Washington Post/ABC poll.  That poll shows that Mr. Obama is really not all that popular.

Disapproval of President Obama’s handling of the economy is heading higher — alongside gasoline prices — as a record number of Americans now give the president “strongly” negative reviews on the 2012 presidential campaign’s most important issue, according to anew Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The report in the Washington Post blames much of this on rising gas prices, but that ignores another factor.  One offshoot of the long Republican race is that the anti-Obama rhetoric of the candidates is in the news every day. 

In the new poll, 46 percent approve of the way Obama is handling his job; 50 percent disapprove. That’s a mirror image of his 50 to 46 positive split in early February. The downshift is particularly notable among independents — 57 percent of whom now disapprove — and among white people without college degrees, with disapproval among this group now topping approval by a ratio of more than 2 to 1, at 66 versus 28 percent.

And there is no effective pro-Obama spokesperson out there.  Look at the lineup of the Sunday talk shows and week after week they are dominated by anti-Obama Republicans, with only a token Democrat amongst them.

So what is the omen in all of this for the Presidential race?  That conventional wisdom that Mr. Obama was leading because of his huge advantage with women voters, African American voters and Hispanic voters like almost all conventional wisdom is wrong.

These groups are also the ones whose shifting support has re-shuffled prospective general-election matchups. Among registered voters, Obama is now on par with Romney (47 percent for the president, 49 percent for Romney) and Santorum (49 to 46 percent). Previously, Obama held significant advantages over both.

And everyone should also notice another fact that falls below the radar on most commentator’s screens.  The survey is of registered voters.  Once the surveys move to likely voters, well, that news will be even worse for Mr. Obama.