Obama Will Struggle if Approval Doesn’t Rise

Charlie Cook takes a look at the most recent national polling on the presidential race.

“These numbers certainly don’t show Obama’s reelection fortunes as hopeless, but they paint a very challenging situation. If events and the state of the economy don’t change enough to raise his approval rating and his chances of winning an election that is framed as a referendum on his tenure, he will have to try to turn the contest into a choice between him and the GOP nominee. That will be easier if Republicans nominate an ideologue (and this still might be possible in a matchup with Romney). Recall the 2004 Bush-Cheney reelection campaign when it turned Democratic nominee John Kerry into an ideological weathervane, an unacceptable choice.”