President 2012: Should the GOP Worry About their Presidential Candidates?

So it does look like Republicans have some legitimate reason to worry. In the previous five competitive primaries — excluding 2004 for the Republicans, when Mr. Bush won re-nomination uncontested — each party had at least two candidates whose net favorability ratings were in the positive double digits, meaning that their favorables bettered their unfavorables by at least 10 points. All five times, also, the nominee came from among one of the candidates in this group. Republicans have no such candidates at this point in time.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have two candidates in Ms. Palin and Mr. Gingirch whose net favorability ratings are actually  in the double-digit negatives, something which since 2000 had only been true of Pat Buchanan and Al Sharpton.

There are plenty of examples of candidates who became considerably more popular (like Hillary Rodham Clinton) or considerably more unpopular (like Elizabeth Dole and Mr. Giuliani) over the course of an election campaign, so none of this is set in stone, especially for the candidates who aren’t yet well-known. Likewise, it’s hard to say what Barack Obama’s standing will look like by November 2012 (right now, his favorability ratings are 51 percent favorable against 41 percent unfavorable).

I would quarrel with Ms. Rubin’s notion that Republicans are squandering a “golden opportunity.” On the one hand, incumbent presidents aren’t easy to beat; on the other, the identity of the opposition candidate only matters within a fairly narrow interval (when the president’s approval rating is between roughly 40 percent and 50 percent). But unless a candidate like Mr. Clinton emerges, Republicans may well be at some risk of underachieving.

Nate silver who slants to the LEFT is right on the money here.

President Obama will be difficult to beat and the Republicans have a weak field of candidates.

So, what to do?

Do NO harm to the Senate, Statehouse or House candidates and regroup for 2016 when the GOP candidate field is more experienced and not running against an incumbent.