Obama Can Beat Nobody in 2012

"Nobody" being a generic Republican. He beats them, but not by much. At least that's what the polling suggests:

President Barack Obama only leads a generic Republican candidate by 2 percentage points in a potential 2012 match up, according to a new Gallup Poll out Thursday that also shows a continued drift of independents from Democrats.

Obama leads 44 percent to 42 percent, a statistical dead heat, against a nameless Republican, according to the survey of 1,025 adults nationwide.

Not surprisingly, the poll shows that Democrats strongly believe the president should be reelected, while Republicans would like to see one of their own in the White House.

But among independent voters, 45 percent would back a Republican and only 31 percent would favor the president. Twenty-four percent of independents are not sure if they would vote for Obama or a Republican candidate.

Of course, when you put a name to the Republican things will change. The generic candidate tends to be the image of an ideal candidate in the minds of voters while actual people have their pluses and minuses. At this point the only thing that's really meaningful in this exercise is the impact Obama is having on the independents that he really needs to win another term. They're fleeing in big numbers.