Bloomberg

US President Barack Obama's approval rating, which rose to 56% in May after the US Marines killed terrorist Osama bin Laden, fell to a historic low of 40% last week, although it hovered around 46% for most of July and all of June (Gallup). Such a low result allows any Republican candidate to hope for victory in the November 2012 elections. According to a Rasmussen poll, the Republican will defeat Obama by 5% (47% to 42%). This ratio has been holding for the fourth week in a row.

However, the rating of not an abstract but a real Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, who is considered the party’s most likely candidate, is ahead of Obama’s rating within the margin of statistical error (about 44%).

"Obama's presidency is in danger of being able to clearly and concisely articulate his vision of what he wants to achieve in the future," The Washington Post quotes William Galston, an expert at the Brookings Institution and former adviser to President Bill Clinton, as saying.

His chief strategist, David Axelrod, agrees that Obama will not be content with just pitching the need for change, but will have to develop a detailed and concrete program. The debt debate has sharply defined the range of issues and options, he says. Republicans favor a much smaller role for government and a budget that can be balanced without raising taxes.

Mitt Romney also spoke about this: “If I were president, my plan would contain budget cuts, but not through defense spending cuts and tax increases” (quoted by The Washington Post).

However, Obama still has prospects for success in 2012. Public opinion is still on the side of the president, who managed to achieve an agreement on the debt, and he also managed to postpone the next debt negotiations until after the election (2013), which will allow him to avoid dealing with the sore issue before the elections, says Dimitri Simes, president of the American Nixon Center.

Obama's rating goes to debt