What are the chances that GOP takes over in November? I always thought they should be next to zero with Obama doing a decent good job from my perspective, but I am an outsider. Here the impression is that he saved the car industry, introduced a universal health insurance, tried to get out of several wars and unworthy camps on Cuba with low success but better than nothing and in general by not cutting spending too much and therefore not deepening the crisis, so the economy even grows again. And he dealt with Bin Laden. The GOP with their policy of blocking everything, demanding unrealistic cuts excluding the military sector and denying proper health care seem to deliver a display of childish, chaotic, extremist behavior. So I assumed the upcoming elections are already decided for good long time ago. Minorities, gays, poor people should provide a decent majority for Obama.

Or is there really a serious chance Romney will be next president?

Too bad.
Guess it's up to Romney now.

5+ trillion in new debt and a real unemployment rate somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent. You tell me if Romney has a serious chance.

You mean the guy who said he didn't care about the very poor, makes jokes about his father shutting down factories, and talks about how he's friends with Nascar... team owners?

Yeah, he'll do a good job of protecting the economic interests of the lower and middle classes.

I don't think any of the Republican candidates are "nut jobs". I think anyone who thinks that way is a close minded git. Of course I'm sure they'd say the same to me. That being said, I'm not a republican, but I value some of their ideas. I don't like Romney though. Ron Paul, I would be down with as a president.

Between the state of the economy and Obama's low approval rating he is eminently beatable. However, at the same time the candidates the republicans fielded are all basically second-rate hacks (the serious contenders are likely waiting until 2016 to take their shot). The best way I've seen it described is "If you look at the state of the country, Obama can't win. If you look at the republican candidates, he can't lose." Very reminiscent of 2004.

The question was whether or not he has a serious chance. Against those two numbers I gave, President Obama has an uphill battle garnering the same votes he did in 2008, especially when one of his dominant blocs, the young voter, has especially poor unemployment numbers. Their patience is growing thin and dissatisfaction is increasing.

On top of that, he doesn't have many actual numbers to tout for his key push, which, surprisingly, was not the economy but instead health insurance. So far about the only numbers we can point to on that issue are the premiums that are still increasing even though the bill passed almost two years ago. We are not yet seeing the promised savings so he can't yet claim positive news on that front; so far it is all projection, and the latest projections are that it's instead going to cost quite a bit more than originally promised. Last, the timing written into the insurance bill, even if we do realize savings from its implementation, means he won't see much of a victory from it until after this election, by which time he may already be out of office.

Like him or not those are going to be some tough hurdles to overcome, and even the most ardent supporters will have to admit that it won't be as easy as last time around.

Pretty much dead on, imho. I think the election will come down entirely to voter turn out; neither of the party bases seems that motivated to me. I will say that, at the moment, my perception is that the Republican base is more motivated to get Obama out than the Democrat base is to get Obama re-elected. So, like you said, basically 2004 in reverse at this point in the election cycle.

A lot can happen over the next 6 months though, and this situation is not static. There is the economy's summer performance, Middle East turmoil, and the Supreme Court's decision on Obama-care on the horizon. Any one of these issues, or some entirely different issue as yet unseen, has the potential to rile up certain segments of the population and motivate them to vote. Nobody knows yet what the 'Swift Boats' might end up being in this election cycle.

After a crisis and with wars going on this would not seem like a really bad outcome. I wouldn't blame Obama for the economic situation really. People would be shortsighted if they did it neglecting all the other influences. The government is only part of the country. But probably they do so partly.

Unemployment is always up in a crisis. Restructuring of the economy, low investments because paying off debts, less confidence about the future, wage adaptation to regain competitiveness. You can't blame Obama for all this. Actually I think with a Republican candidate there would be no car industry anymore as well as even more unemployment because big budget cuts would come on top, deepening the crisis. But that is probably the point where opinions differ.

The main difference between the two parties as far as I can see it from here is not the balanced budget but it's input and output distribution. Democrats want health insurance and higher taxes for the rich. Republicans don't want that and want additional slashes in the budget probably excluding the military. For me it should be clear what the middle and poor class should prefer.

It's the perception problem of these two numbers, regardless of the causes, that will haunt his reelection chances. If he can overcome that, a big hurdle will be cleared.

Not always. World War II, for instance, when unemployment, in the US anyway, was around 1 or 2%. Depends on the crisis, I suppose, and in fairness to your statement a faltering economy is not the same type of crisis as a global war.

An increasing number of former Obama supporters do blame him, and this goes back to that perception problem.

I disagree about the car industry. For one, much of the manufacturing is already done in the US for high-volume models from several foreign brands, including VW, Mercedes, and BMW from your own nation, along with Toyota, Nissan, and others. While two of the US brands would have been in more trouble, the sales would shift instead to the remaining major domestic player, Ford, and the foreign models built here in the States such as the Toyota Camry and light trucks, Nissan trucks, about half of the Subaru lineup, and at least one VW model. At the same time, GM would likely be bought and production would continue. Chrysler, meh. Their problems go deeper, to the generally underwhelming products themselves. Fortunately for GM, their products were finally on the upswing after many years of blah design; the recession's timing sucked for them, though. That aside, there would have been a loss of jobs but nowhere near the numbers claimed, numbers that assume that automotive marketplace demand would decline in proportion to the number of auto industry jobs lost, that production wouldn't be increased at the remaining brands, and that an outside investor wouldn't snatch up the undervalued GM brand and allow it to continue operations while hardly missing a beat. This type of thing is done by companies such as Bain Financial, with which Romney has been associated.

The negative psychological effect, on the other hand, had the potential to be quite severe and it's difficult to put a value on this. This is one of those things that President Obama, if done carefully, can use to help the perception of his efforts on the economy. So far, he hasn't handled this PR very well. Actually, he hasn't handled much at all of his PR very well and that's something the President needs to get on top of if he wants a second term.