Jon Stewart points out that Republicans warned that the consequences of the 2008 election could be dire and now they claim that the 2012 election is all that stands between America and catastrophe.

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A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds Americans are more likely to say President Obama’s first term has been a failure than a success, 50% to 44%. A 51% majority say Obama is too liberal, and Americans “are inclined to
say they disagree with him on the issues that matter most to them.”

On the positive side, 58% say he “has the personality and leadership qualities a president should have.” His favorability ratings are also higher than any of the GOP presidential contenders.

Meanwhile, a new Quinnipiac poll finds Obama with a negative 45% to 49% job approval rating and voters say by a 50% to 45% margin that he does not deserve reelection.

E.J. Dionne: “They say that President Obama is a Muslim, but if he isn’t, he’s a secularist who is waging war on religion. On some days he’s a Nazi, but on most others he’s merely a socialist. His especially creative opponents see him as having a ‘Kenyan anti-colonial worldview,’ while the less adventurous say that he’s an elitist who spent too much time in Cambridge, Hyde Park and other excessively academic precincts.”

“Whatever our president is, he is never allowed to be a garden-variety American who plays basketball and golf, has a remarkably old-fashioned family life and, in the manner we regularly recommend to our kids, got ahead by getting a good education.”

“Please forgive this outburst. It’s simply astonishing that a man in his fourth year as our president continues to be the object of the most extraordinary paranoid fantasies. A significant part of his opposition still cannot accept that Obama is a rather moderate politician quite conventional in his tastes and his interests. And now that the economy is improving, short-circuiting easy criticisms, Obama’s adversaries are reheating all the old tropes and cliches and slanders.”

Tonight’s Republican debate was easily one of the worst of the presidential campaign.

Mitt Romney was armed with opposition research on Rick Santorum but didn’t come close to a knock out. The audience — which was definitely slanted towards Romney — helped cover for many clumsy mistakes. His attempts to throw red meat to conservatives exacerbated his in-authenticity. Nonetheless, Romney did not lose and at the very least held his ground.

Santorum acted as though he was still a non-contender. It’s almost as if he decided in the middle of the debate to run for vice president instead. He also showed how hard it is to run for president with a U.S. Senate voting record. However, he did real damage to Romney in their heated exchange on RomneyCare.

Newt Gingrich scored many points but it’s unclear how he gains against either Santorum or Romney. In the end, he wasn’t much of a factor.

Ron Paul, as always, was consistent on both advancing his libertarian agenda and in helping Romney by attacking Santorum.

The real winner tonight was President Obama. After 20 debates, his potential rivals have done wonders for his re-election chances.

The Fix: “First, this might be the final debate of the GOP presidential race — or at least, the last debate for a while. There are no other debates scheduled before the real Super Tuesday on March 6, and Romney’s campaign has not committed to a planned March 19 debate in Oregon. Indeed, Romney’s campaign looks as though be done with debates altogether, citing the overwhelming number of them in declining to attend a scheduled forum in Georgia next week. That debate fell apart, and without Romney, future debates would as well.”

“It is not accurate to say that a hotly contested convention is
necessarily bad. I am not saying it is necessarily good,
but I don’t think it is accurate to say it is necessarily bad. Let’s
just see.”

— Haley Barbour, in an interview with ABC News.

A new WXYZ/Detroit Free Press poll in Michigan finds Rick Santorum leading Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential primary by three points, 37% to 34%, followed by Ron Paul at 10% and Newt Gingrich at 7%. Another 12% are either undecided or refused to answer.

Said pollster Bernie Porn: “Among GOP voters, Santorum leads Romney by 41%. Among Independent voters, Romney leads Santorum by 30%.”

President Obama’s re-election campaign says they will compete hard in Arizona and a new Public Policy Polling survey suggests they should.

Obama is now tied with Mitt Romney in Arizona at 47%, a dramatic improvement from November when he trailed by 7 points. He leads Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich each by 4 points, 46% to 42% and 48% to 44% respectively. The only Republican he actually runs behind is Rick Santorum, although only by a single point at 47% to 46%.

Rick Santorum’s aides tell Byron York it’s unfair that reporters are asking questions about aspects of Santorum’s faith and not asking similar questions about Mitt Romney’s.

“Of course, Santorum has spoken more publicly about the details of his religious beliefs than Romney has, and that is why some of the questions are popping up now… But specifically religious questioning of Romney is as rare as specific Romney statements about Mormon beliefs. Given the current grilling of Santorum, that is a source of growing frustration to Santorum’s advisers.”

Asked one aide: “Why is Mormonism off limits? I’m not saying it’s a seminal issue in the campaign, but we’re having to spend days answering questions about Rick’s faith, which he has been open about.”

A new Rasmussen survey in Oklahoma finds Rick Santorum with a big lead over Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential race with 43%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 22%, Mitt Romney at 18%, and Ron Paul at 7%.

The Oklahoma primary is on March 6.

John Avlon notes that for all the entertainment of the GOP presidential debates “there is a civic cost to the
radioactive rhetoric that gets thrown out to excite the conservative crowds.”

“It’s not just that the most irresponsible candidates can play to the base and get a boost in the polls, while more sober-minded candidates like Jon Huntsman fail to get attention. The real damage is to the process of running for president itself. Because when low blows get rewarded, the incentive to try to emulate Lincoln — holding yourself to a higher standard — is diminished. And one barometer of this atmospheric shift is in the increasingly overheated rhetoric by candidates attacking the current president. This serial disrespect ends up unintentionally diminishing the office of president itself.”

The New York Times notes that Newt Gingrich, “more than any other candidate, has seen his fortunes ebb and flow with debates, and there is a consensus in his team that his big loss in Florida’s Republican presidential primary last month was in no small part because of debates in which he strained to look above the fray. According to one top aide, Mr. Gingrich’s two daughters had advised him to strike a presidential pose, but that was not the Newt Gingrich voters craved.”

Mitt Romney enlisted Donald Trump for a robo-call in Michigan which is highly critical of Rick Santorum, ABC News reports.

Says Trump on the call: “This is Donald Trump and I have to tell you that I’m tired of Rick Santorum pretending that he’s some kind of DC outsider.”

He notes Santorum is a “career politician” who has “never had a job in the private sector” and also accuses Santorum of working as a lobbyist.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) told the Texas Tribune that he is leaning toward running for re-election in 2014 and possibly another stab at the White House two years after that.

“There are no term limits in Texas… If he does run, Perry could wind up serving a total of 18 years in
the governor’s office and he would complicate the plans of a host of
other statewide elected officials.”