GOP Voters Still Not Happy With Candidates

Approval ratings for President Obama are still hovering just below 50%, and when people are asked to judge how well he is doing with the economy the rating goes even lower. That might make some think that the president is vulnerable in the 2012 elections, especially since the biggest issues in that election will be the economy and the lack of jobs. And that might be true if the Republicans had a candidate with any solutions to those problems -- but they don't.

In fact, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll the Republicans are not much happier with the candidates they have to choose from than the rest of America is. Only 23% of Republicans said they were happy with the candidates in the current field, while more than 70% said they wished other candidates would enter the race.

Even worse, it doesn't look like any candidate has much enthusiastic support. When Republican voters were asked if there was a candidate they enthusiastically supported, no candidate was able to get more than single-digit support. Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann did better than the other candidates, but each could only muster 7% of voters who were enthusiastic about them.

And another poll shows that their unhappiness with the current candidates may be well-founded. A McClatchy/Marist poll done between June 15th and June 23rd shows that even though only 36% of the population say they will definitely vote for President Obama next year, when he is matched individually against any of the Republican candidates he comes out the winner. Here are those numbers:

Obama...............46%
Romney...............42%

Obama...............48%
Giuliani...............41%

Obama...............49%
Bachmann...............37%

Obama...............48%
Perry...............39%

Obama...............47%
Pawlenty...............33%

Obama...............56%
Palin...............30%

It's not hard to see why Sarah Palin finishes dead last in a matchup with the president. She has been steadily losing support for months now.In fact, a Hays Research Group survey done recently shows that it is doubtful that Palin could even hold her home state of Alaska (a very red state) against the president. Here are those numbers:

PRESIDENT OBAMA
Strong supporter...............34%
Moderate supporter...............6%
Leans toward...............2%
Total...............42%

SARAH PALIN
Strong supporter...............25%
Moderate supporter...............6%
Leans toward...............5%
Total...............36%