Repeat After Me: 2012 is an Uphill Battle for Republicans

The economy is in the dumps, President Obama's latest plans for taxes seem dead on arrival and his approval ratings are near the low point of his presidency. As a result, it's becoming conventional wisdom--at least among over-eager Republicans--that the President is a dead duck and sure to lose in 2012. Not so fast.

As of today, in fact, not a single poll--not even those conducted by Republican-leaning polling firms--shows any Republican candidate getting a majority of the vote over Obama or holding a lead outside of the poll's own margin of error.

Second-place candidate Mitt Romeney has within-the-margin-of-error leads in a few polls and poll leader Rick Perry is behind the President all of them.

Given that Obama possesses a number of advantages--the incumbency, a bigger war chest than any Republican is likely to gather, more personal charisma than either Romney or Perry, the tendency of late deciding independent voters to break Democratic--it looks extremely likely that he would win another term in office were the election held today.

This far from a general election, of course, polls don't mean a whole lot. Bob Dole, after all, lead Bill Clinton in the summer of 1996. But there's nothing to indicate that Republicans will cakewalk to the White House next November.