Barone: Palin running even with Obama?

Michael Barone, in his Beltway Confidential column in the Friday Washington Examiner, looks at recent polling results from Rasmussen. With a 3 percent margin of error, the poll essentially shows Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin each tied with President Obama in head to head matchups:

"I don’t think these numbers are anything like a reliable indicator of how the 2012 election cycle will unfold; they’re more like a referendum on Obama today, and not a particularly complimentary one. But it’s interesting that three Republican politicians, each with his or her own liabilities, are still running about even with Obama."

 What seems most significant to us about the more recent polls is that the trend shows Obama in decline and Sarah Palin on the rise. There are many political variables which can change between now and 2012, but it's interesting to track the numbers along the way. The critical variable among them, in our opinion, is what the unemployment picture will look like when campaigning begins in earnest for the 2012 elections. If it is still in double digits, the president will be in a world of hurt.

- JP