Obama looks like a loser, but can still fall back on the thug thing

Recent polls suggest that Barack Obama is now so unpopular that he is in position to pioneer a perverse form of campaign fund-raising.

The Democrat candidate for governor of Texas, Bill White, is carefully absenting himself while Obama visits Texas for two fund raising events.

The Quinnipiac Poll shows more Americans are opposed to Obama than are for him. It also shows that a generic Republican would beat Obama if a contest were held today.

This is a perfect setting for thug-style fund-raising for Obama's uphill run for reelection in 2012, assumng he makes one.

What the Obama team should do is lay out a nationwide schedule of fund-raising, on Obama's behalf, with emphasis on the biggest and richest states. Meanwhile, the Obama campaign should quietly inform the hosts that, in return for a quiet contribution, Obama could be persuaded not to show up.

The chief virtue of this approach is that it would not interrupt Obama's golfing. Besides being profitable, this scheme would cement the Obama team's thuggish reputation at a time when thuggishness is starting to look like Obama's only hope of reelection.

With memories of Jimmy Carter dancing in their heads, Democrats may see Hillary as better bet

It is, of course, a really silly thing to even think about, given the clout of the Chicago Machine boys currently occupying the White House.

But, just say, the Real Great Talker continues his spiraling descent in the polls over the next 12-18 months; already the Democrat is barely tied with Any Republican in opinion polls looking toward 2012.

Even worse, a majority of Americans have already decided they don't want Obama to have a second term.

And just say under Obama's leadership and insistence on his unpopular healthcare bill over jobs, all the spending and exploding deficits, plus the certainty of new taxes to cover his costs, the Democrats in Congress get thoroughly thrashed by the GOP come November. Maybe they even lose control of both houses.

This week a new poll showed Americans now preferring the GOP on a generic congressional ballot. And despite eagerly optimistic recent administration economic claims, the unemployment rate is likely to hang high, and now comes a new ABC News Poll finding national consumer confidence actually waning, not building.

Do you think then maybe by a year from now some Democratic Party bigwigs and money people might be whispering to each other that this arrogant Illinois guy is pulling a Jimmy Carter, constructing a disastrous single term that teed up 12 straight years of Republican White House rule?

Well, it turns out, there is another Democrat -- another former senator, in fact -- hanging around now free of political tussles with an enhanced resume burnished on the world stage, thanks to Obama himself.

And a new CNN/Opinion Research Poll has just revealed that even today Americans like that other Democrat more and dislike that other Democrat less than they do the incumbent Democratic president.