Taegan Goddard links a Public Policy Polling survey [PDF] showing that President Obama would have beaten the most commonly mentioned Republican hopefuls had the election been held from October 16th to 19th and opened to registered voters. (I hasten to add, it wasn’t.)
In fact, according to the survey, “Obama leads Mike Huckabee 47-43, Mitt Romney 48-40, Sarah Palin 52-40, and Tim Pawlenty 50-30.”
Considering that Huckabee, Romney, and Pawlenty remain virtual unknowns to most Americans and Obama is the sitting president, I’m not sure this is as depressing news for the GOP as PPP’s Tom Jensen seems to think. Indeed, Huckabee is actually within the poll’s margin of error!
Look, the 2012 election’s a ridiculously long time from now and it’s pretty silly even talk about it. Still, as Dave Schuler notes, it’s a Thursday. Obama’s quite popular and, while his approval is plummeting by historical standards, it’s still pretty good all things considered. Given our propensity for re-electing sitting presidents, the fact that the economy is bound to be better by mid-2012, and that the Republican Party seems to be in disarray, I’d say Obama is an early favorite to win a second term. But we’ll have a much better idea in, say, two years.
My strong hunch is that neither Huckabee nor Palin will be the Republican nominee. The party traditionally nominates the person whose “turn” it is, which would seemingly point to Romney. But given how sick everyone is with the Washington wing of the GOP, I wouldn’t be shocked if some governor who’s never run before emerges out of nowhere.
