WHERE OBAMA STANDS – AT 9:52 A.M. ET:  Well, it's good for our morale.  The Hill presents a pretty devastating picture of where Obama stands politically right now, and analyzes the reasons.  They're all valid, but none of them negate the need for the GOP to have a candidate who can take Obama on: 

President Obama’s approval ratings are plummeting, and the timing is terrible for the White House.

Even as Obama skewered Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and the House GOP budget plan, his approval rating dipped in a Gallup poll to 41 percent, the lowest number yet of his presidency.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday shows Obama at 47 percent, down seven points since January.

Worse yet for the White House, Gallup shows the president in a nosedive with independents, who are coveted by the Obama-Biden 2012 campaign.

From April 12-14, independents’ approval of Obama fell to 35 percent, 9 percentage points off his average for the year, according to Gallup.

Rising gas prices are no doubt a problem for the White House, and may be a main factor in the plummeting poll numbers. The higher gas prices generally rise, the lower a president’s approval ratings tend to be.

Still, it is disconcerting for the White House and Obama’s new campaign operation in Chicago to see falling poll numbers just after the president launched his reelection campaign with a strategy of focusing on the economy and the contrasting economic visions of the president and the GOP.

COMMENT:  It is still very early in the game.  We are probably a year away from knowing who the Republican nominee is.  And I'd love to know what gas prices will be in April of 2012. 

As the story goes on to say, Mr. Obama is whipping up his crazy base now, with the hope of getting it re-involved, and hoping to come back to the independents later.  That may be a bridge too far.  We hope it is, but we will have only one hand clapping until we know who the GOP picks.

April 21, 2011