The economy is awful and Obamacare is generally unappealing, but Obama is the incumbent. And, while many peopled not like the job he has done, he remains popular on a personal level.  

Case in point. I think he has done a terrible job as President. But, personally, I like the man. I trust him, I think he is a caring person and a great family man. His personal behavior is admirable.

The Republican field is almost a mirror image of the Dem field in 2004. Romney is John Kerry, only with a better business background and money that he earned instead of marrying.

Ron Paul is the surprise character, much like Howard Dean was in 2004.

On his record, Obama is beatable much like Bush was in 2004. But incumbents have a way of finding ways to win.

And the economy will make some meager move up between now and next November and Obama will jump all over that as a sign that his policies are working.  

The Dems wil then be the ones with their backs to the wall in 2016 because it will become the Republicans' turn to win and the Dems right now have no heir apparent waiting in the wings.  Unless, of course, Hillary decides that Medicare can wait for her.

I agree that this is dragging him down.  The question is how will he try to combat it.

There are two approaches in politics: 1) Positive - Run on what you did and/or what you plan to do. 2) Negative - stress the bad in the other side.

It seems to me that he is currently doing the second, blaming the "do-nothing" congress.  He wants to get stuff done, but they are obstructionists and are putting politics above country.  (The same can always be said for both sides.  Does one person hear not think that Pelosi puts politics first?)

Anyway,  I think the next month or so may give an interesting indication as to how popular the "blame others" approach will be.  I am curious to sed where he is in January.

(Of course, big events could always change the situation completely, some helping, others hurting.  I try to exclude those big events in personal predictions.)