A new poll released by Rassmussen this morning shows that Republicans may have a shot to one-term Barack Obama in 2012. Both former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and outgoing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, each have a shot at beating Obama in the next Presidential election. Rasmussen’s poll shows that Obama and Romney are dead even at 45% each.
Obama fares slightly better against Governor Palin leading by six points at 48% to 42%, but the fact that Sarah Palin, a media punching bag and someone they have painted as a divisive figure in America, is only six points behind a President who seemed untouchable just a few months ago is amazing. It may also be a sign that the media assault on the 2008 VP candidate may be backlashing on Democrats.
Mitt Romney scored highly in the poll among voters who said the economy and fiscal issues where the most important for them. The former GOP Presidential hopeful beats Obama with independent voters, a group that was key to the President’s victory in November – Romney won unaffiliated voters 48% to 41%.
The success of Romney and Palin in these early match-ups may be a sign that the ultra liberal policies that Obama and Congressional Democrats have been pushing may be a turn off to the country especially independent voters. Repeated tax-evasion scandals with his cabinet appointees, growing power of unaccountable czars, a developing unrest about the nation’s financial situation and the failed Obama bailout, rising unemployment, and the possibility of expensive, government controlled healthcare, all may become Obama’s albatross sinking what was thought to be the beginning of a new permanent liberal rule in this country.
Even the Washington Post is souring on Obama. An article in yesterday’s paper stated that the President was quickly headed, “south into that political speed trap known as Carter Country: a sad-sack landscape in which every major initiative meets not just with failure but with scorn from political allies and foes alike.” Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll now shows that 37% of Americans “strongly disapprove” of the President’s performance, and as the Washington Post pointed out more than half of America now believes that this recession will last an at least additional two years. To add fuel to the fire, “52 percent think Obama is trying to ‘accomplish too much,’ and 57 percent think the country is on the ‘wrong track.’”
This all paints a picture of a landscape that the GOP can take advantage of in 2012. Just as Reagan was able to rescue the country from the dismal leadership and direction of Jimmy Carter’s administration in 1980, so too could someone like Romney, Palin or another another Republican next time Americans go to the ballot box to elect their President. To be sure, today’s poll and the growing criticism, even from the liberal media that helped elect Obama with their fawning adoration, is a bad sign for the White House.
