Horse race

The Rasmussen Report, every conservative's favorite poll, has the early predictions on the 2012 presidential election.

By my calculation, Obama has been in office almost exactly six months, and Rasmussen is already trying to figure out which Republican will beat him next time around. The two top picks are Willard and The Snowbunny. Absolutely fucking incredible.

As the article points out, Obama beat McCain with 53 percent of the popular vote to Ace's 46 percent. The way I measure things, that establishes Obama's baseline at 53 percent. Any job approval rating over 53 percent is icing on the cake. Most opinion polls are still showing his approval in that range, despite the sluggish economy and the congressional Dems doing everything they can think of to keep the country in turmoil.

Mormon Mitt looks good to Republicans now, six months after they've been told to go stand in the corner, but last year, when it mattered, he couldn't buy a vote. I don't know if Mormon Mitt would've made a decent president or not, but I'm pretty sure that if he'd been been the GOP nominee, Sarah Palin would still be an unknown and there'd be no such thing as Joe the Plumber.

At any rate, the Rasmussen story will keep right-wingers stirred up, and lacking anything more interesting to do, I'll start watching for Romney stories in the newspapers.