Obama Approval Ratings Slip

With even Democrats feeling that the economy is weak, is President Barack Obama's reelection in trouble?

Recent polling shows that Democrats think the economy is good is at the 31% mark, down 17 points from similar polls in February. Factor in that almost two-thirds of Americans believe that the President has poorly handled gas prices. More than half of Americans disapprove of his overall economic policies.

Of Course, talk is cheap, and polls and circumstances change. We are a long way from November and Mitt Romney isn't exactly the strongest candidate the GOP could have picked. There is too the old saw that the President can't affect gas prices very much. Perhaps not, in the short run. Yet if Clinton had allowed drilling in places such as the Arctic, or even, to be fair, if Bush and the Republican Congress after him had done the same, we would have access to that oil by now. Even things such as the Keystone Pipeline would have at the least gained Americans jobs, should the President have approved it. So it seems that a forward looking Chief Executive can make a difference on gas, if he wants to. Even something as mundane as a policy change might signal to gas and oil producers that the future looks bright, and thus spur development and exploitation of our resources.

The funny thing is that none of this is likely to make a difference. The Presidential Election this fall will likely hinge on much more shallow factors. A certain number of people will vote for Romney because he's Republican, a similar number for Obama because he's the Democrat other still in order to keep a balance of power in Washington (on the presumption that the GOP keep the House and retakes the Senate). Race may even be an issue, with some voting against and some for the President based upon it. Any way you slice it, things won't be determined by real policy questions, but by mere human whim.

Quite an unimpressive way to run a country, don't you think?